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Jonas King had made dug-outs of pine in his youth, using an ax 
and an adze. He never attempted to spread the sides, so that the 
breadth of his canoe was no greater than the diameter of the tree 
trunk. 
Baskets: the Parry Islanders made baskets of two kinds, from splints of the 
white ash, and from birch bark. The latter were both decorated and 
undecorated. To make a decorated vessel the Indians removed the 
winter bark by drying the birch trunk before a fire. Small birch- 
bark vessels were sewn with basswood fibre; larger and heavier ones, 
such as boxes to hold maple sugar, with spruce or tamarack root. 
Many Indians preferred the tamarack root, which they split into three 
sections, using only the outer two and discarding the middle section 
as too brittle. 
Bags: some bags were woven of cedar bark, others of basswmod string. 
Entire skins of small mammals such as the groundhog, skunk, muskrat, 
and mink served for tobacco pouches. 
Mats: mats made of rushes were in everyday use for both the outer cover- 
ings and the floors of wigwams. The rushes were gathered about the 
end of August and soaked for a week or more in cold water. They 
were then split while still soft, dried in the sun, rubbed between the 
hands, and pleated. Many women did not soak them at once, but 
tied them in bundles and stored them away in a dry place for treat- 
ment later. 
The rush mats used for covering wigwams were of double thick- 
ness, and not pleated but sewn. The reeds were laid parallel and 
stitched together at top and bottom with thread made from boiled 
basswood root that had been scraped while soft and then twisted on 
the leg. These rush mats were heavier and bulkier than rolls of birch 
bark, but much less brittle. 
A few mats were pleated, not from rushes, but from the husks of 
corncobs. 
Twine: besides the basswood fibre and the roots of the tamarack and spruce 
used for baskets and canoes, and the basswood fibre and occasionally 
cedar bark used in mat-making, the Parry Islanders made an excellent 
twine from the false nettle, Urticastrum divarication. It served them 
for many purposes, such as the manufacture of fish-nets, and could 
even be used instead of sinew for sewing moccasins. 
Clothing: most of the clothing was of deer- or moose-hide, soaked in water 
for a week to remove the hair, then scraped over a pole, spoke-shave 
fashion, with the sharpened radius of a deer. Spring boots w r ere made 
from the leg-skins of the moose. The best moccasins were of moose- 
hide, but some were made of groundhog skins. Beaver skins served for 
sleeping mats, fur coats, and mittens. 
Agricultural Tools : the hoe was a shoulder blade of a deer or moose mounted 
on a wooden handle. Many Georgian Bay Indians used a digging- 
stick fashioned from the crotch of a small tree, the crotch providing a 
foot-rest. 
