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  2. Canoes: A Natural History in North America

Canoes: A Natural History in North America

Mark Neuzil and Norman Sims 2016
This is the story of the canoe, that singular American artifact so little changed over time. Featured here are canoes old and new, from birch bark to dugout to carbon fiber; the people who made them; and the adventures they shared. With features of technology, industry, art, and survival, the canoe carries us deep into the natural and cultural history of North America.

Follow author Mark Neuzil on Twitter: @mrneuzil

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ISBN(s)
  • 9780816681174 (hardcover)
Subject
  • Literature
  • Native American Studies
  • Regional Studies
  • Cultural Studies
  • History
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  • Foreword1
  • Introduction8
  • Chapter 1: Dugout Canoes26
  • Sidebar: Napolean Sanford5
  • Chapter 2: Birch-Bark Canoes43
  • Sidebar: Elm-Bark Canoes2
  • Sidebar: The Oldest Birch-Bark Canoe2
  • Chapter 3: The Fur Trade31
  • Sidebar: The Algonquin Fur Trade3
  • Sidebar: Frances Anne Hopkins1
  • Chapter 4: All-Wood Canoes54
  • Sidebar: Jule Fox Marshall6
  • Chapter 5: Wood-and-Canvas Canoes56
  • Sidebar: Tom Seavey4
  • Sidebar: Canoe Sails2
  • Chapter 6: Synthetic Canoes30
  • Sidebar: Canoe Patents5
  • Sidebar: Canoes in Wartime2
  • Sidebar: Square-Stern Canoes3
  • Chapter 7: The Human-Powered Movement32
  • Sidebar: Paddles2
  • Sidebar: Canoe Packs2
  • Chapter 8: Canoe Tripping25
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  • Sims, Norman10
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A watercolor painting of two people paddling through rapids in a birch-bark canoe.

Canoe in Rapids

Canoeists paddling a Wenonah Kevlar canoe above a rapids in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area.

Shooting the Rapids

Canoeists in a birch-bark canoe near Steamboat Rock, Wisconsin Dells.

Steamboat Rock

Sigurd Olson’s Border Lakes Outfitting Company supplied paddlers with the necessary gear during the 1940s. Here a canoe is retrieved from the company warehouse, April 4, 1940.

Border Lakes Outfitting Company

An oil painting of four canoes traveling past Picture Rock.

Picture Rock at Crooked Lake (Return of the Voyageur)

Myron Nickerson, a former employee of J. Henry Rushton appears on the far right in this 1894 photograph. Nickerson’s livery on the Grasse River in Canton, New York, offered rentals of Adirondack guideboats, Rushton-style pleasure rowboats, small skiffs, and canoes. Nickerson holds a double-bladed canoe paddle in a boat that has also been fitted with non-feathering guideboat-style oars.

Myron Nickerson

This map of Maine’s Moosehead Lake and the headwaters of the Aroostook and Penobscot Rivers was drawn in 1880 by W. R. Curtis to accompany Canoe and Camera, a book by Thomas Sedgwick Steele. It was one of the first maps prepared expressly for canoeists.

Map of Maine’s Moosehead Lake

An oil painting of a figure portaging a canoe.

Crossing the Shallows, Snake River

Canoeing became a more popular pastime in the twentieth century after the establishment of several national parks throughout North America. Here, two paddlers are photographed in 1952 at Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada.

Two Paddlers at Banff National Park, Alberta

A black-and-white photograph of two people poling a dugout canoe on the Columbia River in 1900.

Log Canoe on the Columbia River

This woodcut illustration of a Taino dugout canoe first appeared in Girolamo Benzoni’s La Historia del Mondo Nuovo in 1562. It is titled Modo di nauigare nel Mare di Tramontana, or “navigating into the north wind.” Since the canoe and paddle shapes are not accurate, this illustration probably came from Columbus’s written description rather than from personal contact.

Modo di nauigare nel Mare di Tramontana

A Florida dugout canoe and typical Timucua houses are shown in a 1591 engraving by Theodor de Bry after Jacques Le Moyne.

Florida Dugout Canoe and Typical Timucua Houses

Dugout canoes are still used in daily life throughout the Americas. This contemporary dugout was photographed at Playa de San Mateo del Mar near Oaxaca, Mexico.

Contemporary Dugout at Playa de San Mateo del Mar

Inscriptions on bone from the Late Classic Era Mayan burial site at Tikal (c. 800–c. 1000 CE), redrawn by Linda Schele, artist and Mesoamerican scholar. These and several other images document Mayan canoe transport.

Mayan Bone Inscriptions

The Putun were a group of Chontal Maya from the Gulf Coast of what are today the Mexican states of Tabasco and Campeche. They were the star navigators of the Mayans. Called the “Phoenicians of Mesoamerica,” to them goes the credit for the maritime trading empire along the Caribbean west coast. This fresco featuring dugout canoes is from the interior of the Temple of the Warriors at Chichén Itzá.

Fresco Featuring Dugout at Chichén Itzá

Map of Caribbean.

Map of Caribbean

This drawing by John White dates between 1585 and 1593, and was probably intended to display a bounteous scene to encourage English colonists. Inscribed “The manner of their fishing.” The Algonquin of North Carolina used dugout canoes to harvest fish from February to May. The word “cannow” is written on the hull of the boat.

The Manner of Their Fishing

In one of the earliest views of New York, this woodcut by Kryn Frederycks, titled T’ Fort Nieuw Amsterdam op de Manhatans, depicts native dugouts amidst European sailing vessels, ca. 1626.

T’Fort Nieuw Amsterdam op de Manhatans

A dugout next to an oyster house on the water near New Haven, Connecticut, 1872.

Oyster Dugouts

Archeologists Melissa Memory, Donna, Ruhl, and Ray McGee examine a dugout canoe found during a drought in 2000 at Newnans Lake, Florida. The canoe is one of the longest and better-preserved dugouts from the lakebed. More than 100 dugouts were discovered ranging in age from 500 to 5,000 years old. Photograph by Jeff Gage/Florida Museum of Natural History.

Newnans Lake Dig

John Webber, Tereoboo, King of Owyhee, bringing presents to Capt. Cook, c. 1773-1784. This watercolor depicts the distinctive “crab-claw” sail of the Owyhee (now Hawai’i) island double hull canoes. Artist John Webber traveled with Captain James Cook’s third voyage to the Pacific in 1776-1780.

Tereoboo, King of Owyhee, bringing presents to Capt. Cook

A black-and-white photograph of six dugout canoes of various sizes along a beach at Songhees Reserve.

Dugout Canoes on the Beach at Songhees Reserve

An engraving of a sea otter on a beach.

Sea Otter Engraving, 1780

A black-and-white photograph of a family of three in a dugout canoe: two adults and one small child. One of the adults is throwing a double pronged sealing spear into the water.

Kwakiutl Family

A black-and-white photograph of a dugout canoe. Logs and structures are in the background.

Haida Dugout in Kasaan

A color photograph of three decorated dugout canoes on a rocky beach.

Three Cedar Canoes at Skidegate

A black-and-white photograph of two men working to make dugout canoes. Each man is working on a separate canoe and two other canoes are in the background to the side.

Four Canoes Cut from One Cedar Log

An etching of two men working with steam to hollow a dugout. Men in the background fell trees with fires.

The Manner of Makinge Their Boates

A black-and-white photograph of Bill Reid and several other people using steam to spread the sides of a hollowed dugout canoe.

Bill Reid and Associates Creating a Dugout Canoe, 1985

A color photograph of a painted dugout canoe.

Haisla Dugout Canoe

A watercolor painting of a painted dugout canoe on a beach.

Sacred Escort

A black-and-white of a figure paddling a dugout canoe.

Into the Shadow

Black and white photograph of a woman posing with an oar in a dugout canoe. The canoe is full of vegetables, and the staged river is lined with vegetation.

Woman in Canoe

A black and white photograph of five indigenous men and women standing in or around a long dugout canoe. Written text in white on the bottom of the photograph reads, "Indian Family near Chimacum Creek, Wash."

Hicks Family of the Clallam Tribe

A black and white photograph of two men and one barefoot child standing beside a long dugout canoe. The unifinished canoe is held up by a wooden structure.

Natives Making Canoe from Tree Trunk

A color photograph of Napolean Sanford.

Napolean Sanford

A color photograph of Napolean Sanford sitting with an unfinished dugout canoe.

Napolean Sanford with a Work in Progress

A color photograph of a large gommier tree; a figure stands at the base of the tree to demonstrate the size of the tree.

Gommier Tree

A black-and-white photograph of a beach in Martinique. Several dugout canoes sit on the shore. Palm trees and several structures in the background.

Dugout Canoes in Martinique

A color photograph of the fishing canoe Storm Petrel tied next to water.

Storm Petrel

A color photograph of four birch-bark canoes in the water near rocks and grass on the shore.

Birchbarks at Batchewang

A color photograph of Erik Simula working on a birch-bark canoe.

Erik Simula Working

A color photograph of Erik Simula's canoe in the water, tied near the shore and packed with gear. His dog stands on a log by the shore.

Erik Simula's Canoe and Dog

Solitary paddler sits in a birch-bark canoe at Moose Factory, Ontario.

Solitary Paddler at Moose Factory

An oil painting of Cartier and crew on canoes in the water; larger ships are in the background.

Jacques Cartier Discovering the St. Lawrence River

A color photograph of a model of a Beothuk canoe with two paddles and a pole.

Edwin Tappan Adney's Model of a Beothuk Canoe

A photograph of three outer hulls of birch-bark canoes, decorated with silhouettes, symbols, animals, and shapes.

Decorated Birch-Bark Hulls

An illustration of a birch-bark canoe and a paddle. The ends of the canoe are shaped similarly to the ends of the Kutenai canoe.

Amur River Valley Canoe

A black-and-white photograph of a couple in a canoe. Several boxes and packages are being transported in the canoe as well.

Kutenai Canoe

A map of the range of the paper birch (Betula papyrifera) in North America.

Range of the Paper Birch

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