The Indian's Gift to Modern Recreation
The Illustrated American Magazine
May 8th, 1897
by Charles G.D. Roberts
The very best of the Indians' genius went to the devising of that graceful craft, the birch bark canoe.
In a land thick-strewn with lakes and threaded with innumerable water courses the canoe was brought to its perfection. The Indian did all his tracking by water. The craft in which he journeyed had to combine many and apparently conflicting qualities.
It had to be as seaworthy as a fisherman's lugger to endure the waves of such inland seas as Erie or such broad tides as the St. Lawrence.
It had to be almost as light of draft as a withered leaf to sail the dancing shallows of streams shrunken by midsummer drought.
It had to be noiseless in movement as a swimming mallard, that its owner might steal upon his enemy unawares or surprise the watchful caribou at his drinking.
It had to be capacious to carry squaw and child and food and furs and trophies on long expeditions. It had to be capable of easy and swift repair in case of accident, with such material as might be at hand in any of our northern forests. It had to have a means of propulsion more compact and manageable than clumsy oars, which cannot be wielded in narrow streams or obstructed forest channels.
It had to be so light in weight that a man could carry it on his shoulders from one water to another, perhaps over miles of trackless wilderness. It had to be capable of sailing like a yacht when winds were fair and waters open, for the Indian was economical of the labor of his hands.
All these requirements the Indians of such tribes as the Iroquois, Huron, Algonquin or Ojibway combined in their wonderful boat of cedar and birch bark. They added, moreover, beauty of line, which was simply the most perfect blending of lightness, strength and speed.
This graceful and feline structure, the consummate expression of the race which produced it is, of all watercraft, the best adapted to the delights of a summer holiday. A boat can in no way compare with it, except for family parties, some of whose members are apt to wear a forced smile from the moment of embarking until they find themselves again on dry ground.
A boat is clumsy at the best of times. It is mechanical and formal. Its passenger may lounge at some ease in a cushioned seat, but the rower must sit up on a backless bench whether he be working or idling. If he should have the temerity to forsake his seat and attempt to share that cushioned luxury in the stern, up goes the bow high in air and the situation becomes ridiculous.
A boat, moreover, cannot go finely when there is not room to wield a wide pair of oars. It demands also a certain depth of water, that the keel may not scrape and the oar-blade splash helplessly. It cannot explore those furtive, secluded streams where the flowers may be plucked from both banks at the same time, where the tall ferns lean over in cool green arches, and the world of other people is quite shut out. In fact, just where a great many people, under propitious circumstances, would most want to go the boat cannot take them.
But just here is the canoe most at home.
In the canoe, not only the passenger but the paddler is permitted to lounge. The passenger sits luxuriantly as on a couch. The paddler may kneel, or sit up as stiffly as in a boat, if he wishes; but on the other hand he may sit low on a cushion, with another cushion at his back, and dip his blade in the laziest manner imaginable, yet make very creditable progress all the time. When even such light effort becomes like the grasshopper, he can lie back at his post and loaf or dream as deliciously as if in a hammock swung beneath apple trees.
Such advantages as this what summer punt can offer.
Again, in the case of the boat, the rower needs eyes in the back of his head if he would escape a twisted neck. Unless the passenger steers for him - and sometimes when she does - he must be ceaselessly turning to select his course, if rowing in a narrow stream.
In the canoe, the paddler is at the stern, facing the way he would go. The passenger looks at him instead of at the changing landscape. There is nothing to divert her attention from the skilful fashion in which he wields his paddle. Her business is solely to talk to him, or listen to him, and let him take her whither he will. It is exactly the arrangement which all men, and most women probably, prefer. It even partakes of the quality of an ordinance of nature.
There is but one drawback. Any one can handle a boat after a fashion, and none guess how little he knows about it till the day of disaster comes. But one must be at some pains to learn the management of a canoe.
A canoe is like a horse of high mettle. Rightly managed, you can do anything with it. But it is full of unpleasant surprises for the bungler.
In learning to handle a canoe, the beginner should take the bow paddle, and be coached by an experienced canoeman in the stern. The stroke of the bow paddle - a single-bladed paddle, be it remembered - is the simple propelling stroke. It is delivered as straight up and down, as may be, without scraping the side of the canoe. If the blade of the paddle is thrust out on a slant from the gunwale, as if striving to emulate an oar, its propulsive power is almost lost, and its tendency to turn the canoe around is greatly multiplied, which means exasperation to the paddle in the stern. The paddle, at the end of the stroke, clears the water without any twist of the wrist.
The duty of the bow paddler, in clear water, is simply to force the canoe ahead by pulling the water toward him with the blade of the paddle. To do this most effectively is the nicety of the art. How to kneel or sit, how to hold the paddle, how to begin and complete the stroke, how to recover, these are points that can only be taught under the watchful eye of the master-craftsman in the stern. But three or four lessons should teach them, to any one, man or woman, who has what may be called the out-door aptitude.
But the art of canoeing lies in the mastery of the stern paddle. The stern paddle controls the destinies of the craft. It urges the canoe ahead more effectively than the bow paddle. It shapes the course, and regulates the pace, so subtly that it seems like a matter of mere volition. The process, indeed, with the experienced canoeist, does become practically instinctive. Further, it depends upon the stern paddle whether the canoe shall prove a shifting, treacherous thing, liable to tip out its occupants at any moment, or a stable craft that will ride in safety over seas that the ordinary rowboat would never dare to face.
The secret lies in the turn of the wrist. A simple matter, it would seem. Indeed, the born canoeist finds it so; those who have canoeing thrust upon them find it not so easy.
It must be learned from practice, not from the printed page. But the principle of it may be suggested. It is a development, of course, of the stroke of the bow paddle. That stroke drives the canoe ahead; but at the same time it pushes it forcibly to the side away from the paddle. The same stroke, delivered in the stern, produces the same effect. Keep it up, and the canoe moves in a circle.
If, however, the beginner will turn the paddle-blade sharply outward at the end of the stroke, and try to push the water away from the side of the canoe, he will find that this circular movement is checked. The twist of the wrist does this. When the beginner realizes how the two forces, the propulsive and the directive, may be brought into harmony, the battle is three-quarters gained. The perfect stroke of the stern paddle combines the two motions in one, and varies the degree of each force, according to the needs of the moment, as instinctively as the violinist's fingers finds its right place on the strings.
When this point of skill is reached the sympathy between canoeist and canoe is perfect. The canoe obeys its master's will. It becomes fairly, for the time, a part of him. It is safe, as no skiff or punt can ever be, because it is under the complete control of its master's paddle, which can hold it steady and level on the very crest of a huge sea. Then it becomes the cunning guide to the heart of summer's secrets, the sympathetic promoter of sweet intimacies.
This article first appeared in The Illustrated American Magazine, May 8th, 1897. Many thanks to Beth Brovarney for her generosity in providing the photocopies that allowed us to bring you this great 19th century article on canoes.
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