Canoes: A Natural History in North America

Lee Moorhouse, Log canoe on the Columbia River, ca. 1900.

A Kwakiutl family navigating the waters of Quatsino Sound.

Natives making canoe from tree trunk at Mission ca. 1900. Photograph by Alexander McLean.

A row of Tetes de Boule canoes was photographed by Edwin Tappan Adney in the early 1900s.

A trapper’s dugout canoe constructed of basswood.

Rice Lake Canoe Company catalog from 1900.

Two Nomad decked sailing canoes under construction at the Rushton boat shop, ca. 1900.

Planking is applied to a pair of Indian Girl canoes in the Rushton Boat Shop, early 20th century.

A Gerrish canoe, ca. 1900, serial number 1772, restored by Zachary Smith. Note the reed wrapping at the end of the gunwales, which was a Gerrish feature.

Ella and Bert Morris (far right) and his brother Charlie (far left) pose with their staff in front of the B. N. Morris storefront, ca. 1900.

Courting on Grand Canal in Belle Isle Park in the Detroit River, with Detroit, Michigan, on one side and Windsor, Ontario, on the other, ca. 1900. Note the Victrola mounted in the canoe in the foreground.

The Charles River at Newton, Massachusetts became one of the most popular waterways for “canoedling” among young people during the early twentieth century.

The changing role of women in canoeing became evident on postcards of the early twentieth century.

With the construction of the Vendenesse, it was probably inevitable that the French navy would take an interest in aluminum boats. One result was Le Foudre, a torpedo boat tender (actually made in Britain) with a skin of sheet aluminum thicknesses varying from 1 mm. to 5 mm.

Inventors have struggled to make canoes feel more stable for years and years. Sponsons, which are essentially buoyant pieces attached to the gunwales, were a common answer, including this attempt by D. P. Tuck from 1900.