Canoe in Rapids
From Foreword
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From Foreword
Winslow Homer, Canoe in Rapids, 1897. Watercolor over graphite on off-white wove paper, 35.4 × 53.3 cm (13 15/16 × 21 in).
From Introduction
Photograph by H. H. Bennett, canoeists in a birch-bark canoe near Steamboat Rock, Wisconsin Dells.
From Introduction
Francis Lee Jaques, Picture Rock at Crooked Lake (Return of the Voyageur), 1947. Oil on canvas, 83.8 x 106.6 cm.
From Chapter 2: Birch-Bark Canoes
Birchbarks at Batchewang, 2012.
From Chapter 2: Birch-Bark Canoes
Contemporary birch-bark builder Erik Simula working on a bark canoe in 2009.
From Chapter 2: Birch-Bark Canoes
Erik Simula's canoe, Nama, and his dog, Kitigan, at Mountain Lake in the Arrowhead Region of Minnesota.
From Chapter 2: Birch-Bark Canoes
Solitary paddler sits in a birch-bark canoe at Moose Factory, Ontario.
From Chapter 2: Birch-Bark Canoes
Jean Antoine Theodore Gudin, Jacques Cartier Discovering the St. Lawrence River, 1847. Oil on canvas, 142 x 266 cm.
From Chapter 2: Birch-Bark Canoes
Edwin Tappan Adney's model of a Beothuk Canoe.
From Chapter 2: Birch-Bark Canoes
The outer hulls of bark canoes were often engraved with symbols, animal silhouettes, and geometric shapes. Bark collected in the winter was purportedly better for such etchings than summer bark. Edwin Tappan Adney featured these designs on a canoe built in Old Town, Maine and exhibited at the New York Sportsman’s Show in 1897.
From Chapter 2: Birch-Bark Canoes
Birch-bark canoe from the Amur River Valley region in Russia. From Puteshestvie na Amur . . . (Expedition to the Amur), Richard Karlovich Maack, 1859.
From Chapter 2: Birch-Bark Canoes
Phyllop Peter and his wife paddle a Kutenai canoe on Kootenay Lake in 1922.
From Chapter 2: Birch-Bark Canoes
The range of the paper birch (Betula papyrifera) in North America. The tree is sometimes called canoe birch.
From Chapter 2: Birch-Bark Canoes
Birch trees at Bognor Marsh near Georgian Bay off Lake Huron.
From Chapter 2: Birch-Bark Canoes
Paul Kane, White Mud Portage, Saulteaux, ca. 1776–1780.
From Chapter 2: Birch-Bark Canoes
The Ojibwe (also called Chippewa) built different styles of canoes, including this distinctive long-nose model.
From Chapter 2: Birch-Bark Canoes
Birch-bark baskets, like this Ojibwe example from Grand Portage, are used for winnowing wild rice.
From Chapter 2: Birch-Bark Canoes
Birch had a number of uses for native tribes. Two Ojibwe women, Mary Bigwind and Maggie Skinaway, make birch vessels for maple sap, which could be made into syrup, supplying the tribe with its sugar.
From Chapter 2: Birch-Bark Canoes
Eastman Johnson, Canoe of the Indians, ca. 1856–1857.
From Chapter 2: Birch-Bark Canoes
The Cree were excellent birch-bark builders, as seen in this boat dating from the period 1875–1900.