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It would be hard to overstate the importance of the canoe in the history of Canada and the Great Lakes Region. The canoe is an almost perfectly designed artifact. It is so simple, beautiful and versatile that it has managed to stay in continous use for hundreds of years. It has been called one of the greatest gifts of the First Peoples to all those who came after. Through no other means did explorers, traders and missionaries gain access to the northern interior of the continent. Many of these early travelers published accounts of their experiences to satisfy intense interest of the reading public in Europe and the more settled areas of North America. The canoe was so much a part of everyday experience for these writers that some barely mention it. Others where fascinated by the ingenious design and describe it in detail. Before the canoe died out as a practical method of transportation it began taking on another role as a recreational vehicle which had the ability to renew a paddler.

Desplayed here are a few examples of the canoe as described by what one author called the "heroes of the canoe and portage" and by authors, who continue thier interest in canoeing.

Model Canoe
    Algonkin Style,
about 1900

Model Canoe
    Ojibwe Style,
maker Benjamin L. Fairbanks Deer River, Minnesota 1996

J. Carver
    Travels Through the Interior Parts of North America, in the Years 1766, 1767, and 1768
London: C. Dilly, 1781

Jonathan Carver's travels through Minnesota, nearly 100 years after Fr. Hennepin, added little to knowledge of the area but became one of the most popular and widely published accounts. While on the Mississippim, above the mouth of the Wisconsin River, he gives an indication of how critical the canoe was to his explorations. A night time raiding party of unidentified Indians entered Carver's camp. Carver called his men to arms "As my first apprehensions were for my canoe". The illustration shown here is a canoe being portaged around the falls of St. Anthony.

George Heriot
    Travels Through the Canadas, Containing a Description of the Picturesque Scenery on Some of the Rivers and Lakes...
London: Richard Phillips, 1807

One of the most wonderful oddities of this era is this book by the Scottish born postmaster- general of British North America. Heriot traveled extensively in an attempt to improve postal facilities and relaxed by sketching and writing. his artwork is beautiful and historically significant but perhaps his most important legacy is that he was one of the first writers to describe the wilderness as pleasing and beautiful.

Alexander Mackenzie
    Voyages from Montreal, on the River St. Laurence, Through the Continent of North America, to the Pacific Oceans: In the Years 1789 and 1793...
London: T. Cadell, Jun, And W. Davies, 1801

Often the explorers and traders fail to mention their canoes because they were such a daily fact of life. Mackenzie could not help but make dozens of diary enteries about his mode of transportation because as he crossed the continent he and his party wore out the boats and had to stop to repair and replace them. "It now remained for us to fix on a proper place for building another canoe, as it was impossible to proceed with our old one, which was become an absolute wreck". He was also very curious about the canoe and took time to measure and describe them including the great cedar dugouts he found on the west coast.

Samuel Hearne
    A Journey from Prince of Wale's Fort in Hudson's Bay to the Northern Ocean... in the Years 1769, 1770, 1771, and 1772
London: A. Strahan and T. Cadell, 1795

Hearne began working for the Hudson's Bay Company about 1765. Exploring for the Company he became the first white man to reach the Arctic overland. He also built the first inland trading post. Cumberland House, in 1774. Its strategic location on an island in the Saskatchewan River gave him opportunity to observe canoes traveling to three directions.

Finding plenty of good birch growing by the side of Theley-aza River, we remained there for a few days, in order to complete all of the wood-work for the canoes...

Samuel de Champlain, a central figure in Canadian history laid the foundation in 1608 for Quebec, the first permanent French colony in North America. He was also the first European to recognize the genius of the canoe and the necessity of adapting it for his purposes. While exploring the St. Laurence River in sailing ships, he and his party were stopped near present-day Montreal. There they watched Indian travelers easily carry their bark canoes past the treacherous white water of the Lachine Rapids. In 1611 he even had the dubious pleasure of canoeing down the Lachine with Huron paddlers who "are so cleaver at shooting rapids, that this is easy for them."

Model Canoe
    Ojibwe Style
about 1910

Samuel de Champlain
    Les Voyages du Sieur de Champlain Xaintongeois, Capitaine Ordinaire pour le Roy, en la Marine
Paris: Jean Berjon, 1613.

This illustration in Champlain's Voyage depicts his participation in a battle against the Iroquois on Lake George in 1609. The war party consisted of 60 men, including three Frenchmen and their Huron, Algonquin, and Montagnais allies, in 24 canoes. Their French firearms and birch bark canoes, which were lighter and faster than the elm bark canoes of the Iroquois, gave them the advantage and the victory. This may be the first illustration of the North American canoe ever printed.

Codex Canadiensis
Paris: Librairie Maurice Chamonal, 1930.

This is a facsimile of a manuscript from about 1700 by Abbe Nicholas, who was in New France in the mid 1600's. The work is devoted to local Indian life and the illustrations are not particularly accurate. The canoe, for example, is probaly a composite of several types of boats, while most of the features are based on a Micmac design. Notably the gunwales are raised in the center.

Model Canoe
    Long Nose Ojibwe Style
maker: William Hafeman
Big Fork, Minnesota
about 1950

George Catlin
    Illustrations of the Manners, Customes, and Condition of the North American Indians: In a Series of Letters and Notes...
London: Henry G. Bohn. 1851 2 volumes.

One of the most famous artists of the west was George Catlin. In his extensive travels he spent much time in Minnesota. Shown here (on the lower right) is what Catlin describes as a "curious scene" of "men, women, dogs, and all" portaging around the falls of St. Anthony. He also described the bark canoe as "the most beautiful...of all the water crafts ever invented".

J. G. Kohl
    Kitchi-Gami: Wanderings Round Lake Superior
London: Chapman and Hall, 1860

German Travel writer, Kohl, spent time on Superior documenting Ojibwe traditions and stories for his European readers. His description of canoe building is particularly detailed. "I have had a famous opportunity to watch, for...[t]he Indians expend as many bark canoes as we do hunting-boots..."

Paul Kane
    Wanderings of an Artist Among the Indians of North America
Longdon: longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, and Roberts, 1859

Irish artist, Kane, was anxious to capture Indian life before it changed. Supported by the governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, Sir George Simpson, he spent 1845-1848 sketching in western Canada.

Henry Youle Hind
    Narrative of the Canadian Red River Exploring Expedition of 1857 and of the Assinniboine and Saskatchewan Exploring Expedition of 1858
London: Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts. 1860.

Hind was an English born professor of geology hired by the Canadian government to "ascertain the practicability of establishing an emigrant rout between Lake Superior and the Selkirk Settlement" on the Red River. Hist descriptions of the country are extremely detailed. While he takes the canoe for granted and seldom mentions themn, they slow up prominently in the beautiful chromoxylographic illustrations.

Most writers gave only sketchy details of how the birch bark canoes were put together. Schoolcraft's work contained a drawing (shown above) by Seth Eastman which helped many readers visualize the construction. It wasn't until the beginning of the Twentieth century, when all but a handful of canoes were preserved in museums, that scholars, like Adney, studied the different canoe designs and methods of construction.

Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
    The Indian Tribes of the United States: History, Antiquities, Customs, Religion, Arts, Language, Traditions, Oral Legends, and Myths
Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott and Company, 1884

Known primarily as an explorer, Schoolcraft was also a geologist, Indian agent and administrator, and an amateur ethnologist. He married a woman of Ojibwe descent and in 1847 was commissioned by congress to compile an encyclopedic work on American Indians. The title was originally published in six volumes and was illustrated by Captain Seth Eastman. Displayed here is the two volume edition edited by Drake. Schoolcraft writes, "A special object which has stimulated the ingenuity of the Norther Indians is bark canoes".

Edwin Tappan Adney and Howard I. Chapelle
    The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America
Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1964

More than 100 years after Schoolcraft described the birch bark canoe a thorough and scholarly book was issued by the U. S. government. Chapelle, the Curator of Transportation at the Smithsonian, using notes created by Adney at the turn of the century, describes the distinct details of dimensions, decoration and shape of the various canoes used across the continent.

Half way through the Nineteenth Century there was a noticeable shift in the use of the canoe. What had been a serious necessity for transportation became a vehicle of recreation. If Charles Lanman wasn't the first to use the canoe as a pleasure craft, he was an early and articulate proponent. Lanman was a journalist, a librarian, an artist, and travel writer. In the Romantic tradition of his day he wrote about nature in religious terms and of the "vivifying influence" of the wilderness. He deplored the fur traders who had equal disregard for the beauty of nature and the indigenous cultures and lamenated the intrusions of EuroAmerican culture.

The Indian canoe is giving way to the more costly buy less beautiful rowboat, and those rivers are becoming deeper every day. Instead of the howl of the wolf, the song of the husbandman now echo through their vales...

from Essays for Summer Hours

Charles Lanman
    Lake Superior
1885 Oil on paper mounted on board

Charles Lanman
    A Summer in the Wilderness; Embracing a Canoe Voyage Up the Mississippi and Around Lake Superior
New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1847

From St. Louis, Lanman traveled up the Mississippi by steamboat and birch bark canoe. He follows the voyagers route from Sandy lake to the St. Louis river to Lake Superior.

Charles Lanman
    Essays for Summer Hours
Boston: Hilliard, Gray, and Company, 1842

Lanman often collected his magazine stories into book form. This collection is representative. It contains his thoughts on art and literature, character sketches and the value of nature.

Laurence Oliphant
    Minnesota and the Far West
Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons, 1855

Books like Lanman's created an interest in Europe to see this developing part of the country. Oliphant, English travel writer and artist, reverses Lanman's exploration of Minnesota by coming across Lake Superior, up the St. Louis river to the Savanna portage and down the Mississippi. His description of his guides shooting the LIttle Falls, after dropping off the rest of the equipment and passengers, is shown here. The author had to "scold our voyagers for their rashness in risking our boat, and their perfidy in not risking us along with it".

Harriet E. Bishop
    Floral Home; or, First years of Minnesota. Early Sketches, Later Settlements, and Further Developments
New York: Sheldon, Blakeman and Company, 1857

Bishop came to St. Paul in 1847 to open the first permanent school. Her entry into the city was via her first canoe ride which "was pleasing in the extreme" until the mosquitoes attacked.

The lore and the legacy of the canoe is as strong in the Twentieth Century as ever. We do not need to look beyond Minnesota authors to find examples of the use of the fur trade and exploration as subject matter for fiction. Typically these novels were directed at young male readers. There has also been a continuing interest in nonfiction books. Minnesota writers have provided expert advice on the art of canoe camping and poetic descriptions of the canoe country.

Model Canoe
    Ojibwe Style
about 1910

D. Lange
    In the Great Wild North: A Story of the Hudson Bay Company and Wahita, the Cree of the Big Swamps
Boston: Lothrop, Lee and Shepard Company, 1915

Dietrich Lange was a high school principal and newspaper columnist in St. Paul and wrote several boys adventure novels that revolve around fur trading and exploring.

Wahita was cool and skillful with the paddle. The canoe rose on the crests and glided into troughs and seemed to be picking its own path, so that Steve became quieted and was no longer afraid.

E. C. Brill
    The Island of the Yellow Sands:
An Adventure and Mystery Story for Boys
New York: Cupples and Leon Company, 1932.

This novel is about two boys and an Ojibwe companion and is set in Montreal, Sault St. Marie, and Grand Portage in the 1790's.

Sigurd F. Olson
    The Lonely Land
New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Inc., 1961

This Ely, Minnesota author's name has become synonymous with the canoe country environment. Here Olson and five others recreate a voyagers adventure on the Churchill River. The illustrations are by Francis Lee Jaques.

Florence Page Jaques
    Canoe Country
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1938

This is the journal of, husband and wife team, Francis Lee and Florence who spent a three week vacation canoeing in the Superior National Forest.

This is the moment, I think, when I've really given my heart to our canoe country, though I've been entranced with it from the first. But here its special quality of wild innocence touches me sharply and deeply.

I should very much like to live here forever. It's sorcery. It's not our world at all; it's another star."

Calvin Rutstrum
    North American Canoe Country
New York: Macmillan Company, 1964

One of the country's best known outdoorsmen, Rutstrum was very knowledgeable about all aspects of canoes and canoeing. This book contains everything from history to food budgets. Illustrated by Les Kouba.

The exhibit's curator Mr. Patrick Coleman, Minnesota History Society.