Old Canoe In Conservation, Germany

Maja

New Member
Hello out there
I am a conservator, living and working in Germany. At the moment i am working with a colleague for a Museum in Brunswick. They have a big ethnography Collection. One object is a birchbark canoe from eather Labrador or Algonkin (st. Lorenz river). There are unfortunatly two information and we dont know which might be right.

I was reading already so much in your forum and i discovered so much knowledge, we dont have over here, because building canoes wasnt a topic in Germany ever. Maybe you can help us to know more about our canoe over here.

The inventory of the Museum says:
the canoe was bought from Indians at a big lake (no more Information) before 1875. It is 14-15 feet long and about 2-3 feet wide.

Thats it. I´ll try to post a picture for a better understanding.

Nowadays the canoe is in really bad condition, because the storage wasnt made for a canoe of that material.

Some details we didnt expect to find, were iron nails and textil. There are some nails, with which the upper wooden slat was fixed around the canoe. And we found a slim slice of textile at the nose and at the rear of the canoe, where both birchbark come together. of course it is layered.

Greetings, Maja
 

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What do you think about this old lady? Are there any untypical things for you as well? Or does it seem to be all over originally? What do you thing about the origin? Or about the iron nails and canvas?

I would love to get as much response and knowledge as possible from your group. Thank you!
 
There are many here that know much more about birch bark canoes than me but I will try to get things started. The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America book is the reference that you will probably want to use to help identify this canoe. It is available from https://repository.si.edu/handle/10088/9991 as a free download. My guess is that you have an Algonkin style based on the pictures of similar canoes from pages 113-122. The iron nails and canvas on the ends indicate that it was probably built after the mid-1800s. Good luck with the identification, preservation, and restoration,

Benson
 
What a wonderful canoe to have in the Ethnology Collection.

Like Benson said, the canoe is more consistent with the Algonkin (Algonkian) tribes of the St. Lawrence based on the shape of the ends. The region of Labrador is quite different geographically and the native peoples of that region (Nascapi Cree - Innu) had different styles of canoes with more patches of bark given the smaller size of birch trees.

The pages that Benson talked about are also available online from Gutenberg.org at the following link.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/50828/50828-h/50828-h.htm#Page_113

You will see descriptions of 14-15ft bark canoes with very similar shapes to yours.

The use of nails was not uncommon by the mid to late 1800s since this was much faster and easier than lashing with spruce roots.Or they may have been added as an alternative to wooden pegs to secure the topwale on the gunwales surrounded the boat. Also the "textil" you mentioned is likely a scrap of canvas or burlap soaked in tree resin to make the bow and stern more waterproof. Many modern birchbark canoe builders use this method to ensure less water leakage from the ends.

By the way Maja, did the canoe come with some accompanying canoe paddles? If so, it would be helpful if you could post photos of those as well.

Apart from the other experts on these forums, perhaps you could try and contact the curator and the Canadian Canoe Museum. They might be able to assist with more details. Good luck
 
Thank you Benson, thank you Murat....both information helped already a lot.

According to the book of bark canoes i would definitly agree that it is a Algonkin style canoe. There are really many similarities. Yesterday i got another book, Birchbark Canoes of the fur trade by Timothy J. Kent. Including that book into my researches i would like to say that our canoe over here is a mixture of Algonkin style canoe and Sault canoe. Is it typical that there are canoes with mixed characteristics?

Murat, you asked me about paddles. Unfortunatly in the museum should be two, but they seem to be gone for some decades. It is said, that they have a length of 5 feet. They were decorated with leafs, arabesques, different birds, a deer and a cow.

I will send more details as far as i have....
 
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