Canoes: A Natural History in North America

Frances Anne Hopkins, The Red River Expedition at Kakabeka Falls, 1877.

Théophile Hamel, Portrait de Samuel de Champlain, 1870. Oil on canvas, 66 x 86 cm.

French explorers witnessed the pearl diving industry in the Caribbean, where the newcomers got a glimpse of the native dugouts used in the activity.

George Agnew Reid, The Arrival of Champlain at Quebec, 1909. Pastel on wove paper, 62 × 43 cm.

Samuel de Champlain, Map of New France, 1632.

After Hyacinthe Rigaud, Portrait of Louis, XIV, after 1701.

The painter John James Audubon is more well-known for his images of North American birds, but he also painted other wildlife, such as these two beavers working on a tree.

John Bowles, Thomas Bowles and Herman Moll, A New and Exact Map of the Dominions of the King, 1731.

Beaver pelts were used in making felt, which could be turned into a top hat, shown here with its case.

The process of making hats from the pelts of beavers is partially illustrated in this 1858 artwork from Charles Knight, produced by the London Printing and Publishing Company.

Arthur Heming, The Voyageur, 1915. Oil on canvas, 76.7 × 102.2 cm.

Abby Fuller Abbe, The Voyageur, ca. 1860.

Frederic Remington, Radisson and Groseilliers, 1905. Oil on canvas, 110.2 x 194.3 cm.

Nicholas de Fer, Le Cours du Missisipi, 1718.

George Caleb Bingham, Fur Traders Descending the Missouri, 1845. Oil on canvas, 73.7 × 92.7 cm.

This 1822 watercolor from the Manitoba Museum’s Hudson’s Bay Company Collection, illustrates a canot du maître carrying two officers.

Adam Sherriff Scott, Chief Trader Archibald McDonald Descending the Fraser, 1828, ca. 1942. 81.28 x 63.5 cm.

Frederic Remington’s drawing of a voyageur struggling with his load illustrates the use of a tumpline across the top of his forehead to help distribute the weight more evenly. ‘Tumpline’ is based on the Algonquian word for line.

The voyageurs plied the North American frontier for generations, often leaving from Montreal or York Factory or Lake Winnipeg on their long-distance trading journeys and not returning for many months, or sometimes years.

Jean Baptiste Nolin and Vincenzo Coronelli, Partie occidentale du Canada ou de la Nouvelle France, (Paris: J. B. Nolin, 1688).