Canoes: A Natural History in North America

Woodcut illustration of a Taino dugout canoe, Girolamo Benzoni’s La Historia del Mondo Nuovo, 1562.

Drawing by John White (~1585–1593), inscribed The manner of their fishing and A Cannow.

The Manner of Makinge Their Boates, Theodor de Bry, 1590.

Florida dugout canoe and typical Timucua houses, 1591, engraving by Theodor de Bry after Jacques Le Moyne.

Kryn Frederycks woodcut titled T’ Fort Nieuw Amsterdam op de Manhatans, ca. 1626.

Samuel de Champlain, Map of New France, 1632.

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

The Baron of Lahontan (Louis-Armand de Lom d'Arce) drew this description of the Iroquois' elm-bark canoes for a three-volume memoir of his time in New France, which ended in 1693.

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

Nicholas de Fer, Le Cours du Missisipi, 1718.

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

Denis Diderot's depiction of a Parisien furrier from his L’Encyclopie, 1751–1757

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

Sea otter engraving, 1780.

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

A map of Alexander Mackenzie’s routes from Montreal to Fort Chipewyan and then onward to the Arctic Ocean in 1789 and to the Pacific Ocean in 1793. Published by Mackenzie in 1801.

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

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

Jean Antoine Theodore Gudin, Jacques Cartier Discovering the St. Lawrence River, 1847. Oil on canvas, 142 x 266 cm.

Paul Kane, The Mountain Portage, 1849–56. Oil on canvas, 64 × 51 cm.