Canoes: A Natural History in North America

Frank S. Nicholson, poster for the National Park Service, c. 1936–1940. This poster is from the NYC Art Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), which sponsored artists of almost all stripes during the Great Depression. Nicholson was among almost ten thousand artists who were supported by the WPA’s Federal Art Project.

The Canadian Olympic hero Francis Amyot at the Berlin Games in 1936, where he won his country’s only gold medal in a custom-built canoe made to fit his 6-foot-plus frame.