Native American Water Craft in North America, Part I                

                 By John Nass, Jr.

Editor, President Mon-Yough Chapter #3

Introduction

     This edition of the journal will focus on water craft used by Native Americans. Part one of this issue will consider the kayak and the birch bark canoe, while Part II will consider the dugout canoe. Of the three, the kayak and the canoe have become recreational water craft in the Americas. While the canoe has not substantially changed except for the manufacturing components, there are numerous versions of the kayak, each form designed with a specific purpose in mind. 

     Canoes, by definition, are open-air crafts propelled through the water using paddles. In North America, Native Americans built three types of water craft: the kayak, the birch bark, and the dugout. While the dugout has a long history of usage both in Europe and the Americas, the antiquity of the kayak and the birchbark canoe is unknown, mostly due to its perishable nature. 

     While kayaks are paddled, these are not open-air shells. Kayaks consist of either a wooden and/or a bone frame across which is stretched shewn together animal skins, usually seal or walrus. The skins of these two aquatic mammals are ideal for making the covering for the kayak. One to three reinforced openings exist for the occupant(s) to sit within the craft. These crafts were used extensively for hunting seals and other small aquatic mammals and for fishing. For hunting larger game such whales and walrus and for moving supplies and people, the open-air skin boat known as the umiak was used (Bonvillain 2001). This craft was the product of a community coordinated project because of its size (16 to 30 feet in length) and the required labor to assemble the craft (the frame and the skin covering)(www.achp.gov ; www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca).

     While the umiak was designed for open, coastal sea hunting and transportation, the Kayak was designed for hunting and fishing inland lakes, rivers, and coastal waters of theArctic Ocean, the North Atlantic, and the Bering Sea ((Bonvillain 2001; Oswath 2008). In Inuktituk, the language of the Inuit people, the word kayak means “man’s boat” or “hunter’s boat.

Above: an Inuit in a one-person kayak c. 1920file:///C:/Users/John/Desktop/MP-1976.24.64%20_%20Inuit%20in%20kayak,%20about%201920_files/a328ce5649e910db2f9d75d4df3a779b.jpg

          As bands of people spread across the Artic region and eventually to Greenland, these skin-covered craft were essential in the movement of people, dogs, and supplies (Oswalth 2008). The age of the kayak and the umiak is difficult to estimate (Oswalth 2008). Artic scholars believe the umiak dates to early Inuit (Thule) times (1000 CE) in the central Arctic and appeared in Greenland, Baffin Island, Labrador, the Mackenzie Delta, Alaska and eastern Siberia. The Kayak is believed to be older, c. 2000 BCE. 

     Unlike the skin covered water craft of the artic region, the birchbark canoe was limited in its distribution to the upper Midwest, southern Canada, and the Northeast – including the St Lawrence Valley – due to the distribution of birch trees (Oswalth 2008). Again, the age of birchbark canoes is uncertain. European explorers of the St. Lawrence region encountered Native Americans in canoes in the 16^th century. Presumably the origins of canoes dates to sometime in the Woodland Period, c. 700 CE, if not earlier.

     The skills required to build birchbark canoes were passed on through generations of master builders. The frames were usually of cedar, soaked in water and bent to the shape of the canoe. The seams were waterproofed with hot spruce or pine. The shape of each canoe differed according to its intended use, as well as the traditions of the people who made it. Smaller canoes were used for hunting and for fishing in the lakes and rivers across the Northeast, while larger canoes were used by war parties

     The types of birchbark canoes used by Indigenous peoples and voyageurs differed according to its intended route and how  such cargo it was intended to carry. The famous canot du maître, on which the fur trade depended, was up to 12 m long, carried a crew of six to 12 and a load of 2,300 kg of cargo on the route from Montreal to 

Above: Building a canoe. Artwork by Lewis Parker (The Canadian Encyclopedia).   

Lake Superior in the interior of the Great Lakes region. The smaller version, the canot du hord, carried a crew of five or six and a cargo of 1,360 kg over the smaller lakes, rivers, and streams of the upperGreat Lakes region. Successful navigation of the interior rivers was not always successful. Rapids on some rivers could not be negotiated, requiring transportation canoes and cargo overland to a safer location on the river. Other times, traders took chances which did not always have a desired outcome. In the 1960s, a coordinated investigation of rivers and streams along the Ontario and Minnesota border recovered numerous brass and iron artifacts from over turned canoes in areas of rapids (Woolworth et al. 1975).

     According to Prindle 1994), bark canoes could be stored in two ways: either kept from excessive light and moisture (elevated upside-down in the shade under a cover), or completely submerged in a lake or pond with rocks used as weights.

Above: 18^th century birchbark canoe on display by the Pejepscot Historical Society, Maine.  (www.mainepubic.org) 

      One or both types of bark canoes were used in the famous Joliet and Marquette venture from St. Ignace, Michigan, to the explore the western Great Lakes region and the  upper   Mississippian River in the 1670s (Wisconsin Historical Society digital collection, 2003). 

 

Above: Shooting the rapids. Painting of the fur trade canot du maître canoe. (www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca)

    

 Listed below are some short videos of making birchbark canoes.

  https://youtu.be/46LoBsZZwok?si=nMsaFI_kKKNg9TJp

 http://youtu.be/k2leKfPyBbU 

https://youtu.be/PQnM3YawP-Y?si=VVNKoNlKNjEASQGo

References

Bonvillain, Nancy
2001 Native Nations: Cultures and Histories of Native North America. Prentice Hall, Publishers.
 

Oswalth, Wendell H.
2008  This Land Was Theirs: A study of Native North American. Oxford University Press.
 

Prindle, Tara
1994  NativeTech: Native American Technology and Art.(http://www.nativetech.org)
 

Woolworth, Alan R., Douglas A. Birk, Robert C. Wheeler, and Walter A. Kenyon
1975  Voices from the Rapids: An Underwater Search for Fur Trade Artifacts, 1960-1973.
           Minnesota Historical Archaeological Series No. 3., Publications of the Minnesota
           Historical Society, Saint Paul.