When the Europeans arrived in North America, they brought with them ocean-going ships, firearms, metal technologies and many more modern innovations. They were greeted by the Native American tribesmen, who had a few superior innovations of their own, such as agricultural developments, sanitation and the wonderful birch canoe.
These canoes were invented by Chippewa craftsmen and first used in Ottowa. The first French explorers who travelled the St. Lawrence River in the late 1500s were astonished to find the Native Americans using boats made of little more than bark travelling from the smallest rivers to the Great Lakes. So when the French arrived, they found an extensive system of inland trading routes waiting for them and they quickly assimilated the canoe building of the Chippewa, who called themselves Ojibwa.
The canoes were made in a variety of sizes, the smallest for use on small and shallow inland rivers and creeks. The largest canoe, the canot de maitre, or master canoe, was 35-40 feet in length with a cargo capacity of six tons. It was used to transport freight on the largest rivers of the Great Lakes.
Ojibwe Native Americans in birch canoes
The canoes were made using a frame of cedar. Sheets of birch bark were soaked in hot water and fitted over the frame, with the white birch inside the canoe and the tan inner bark on the outside to take advantage of the birch’s natural curl. The sheets were secured to the frame with spruce or larch root called watap. The seams between the bark sheets were sealed with a mix of spruce resin and charcoal. The boats were decorated using porcupine quills.
Building and decorating a birch canoe today using traditional methods
Recalling Hiawatha!
In my last entry in this, my reflective journal, I spoke of how my mother would tell us the story of “Hiawatha’s Childhood”. Having explored a little of the history of the birch canoe I returned to the epic poem, “The Song of Hiawatha” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, written in 1855.
Along the way, I discovered that Longfellow drew material for his poem from his friendship with Ojibwe chief Kahge-ga-gah-bowh and set his events on an area of Michigan on the South Shore of Lake Superior.
His poem follows Hiawatha’s childhood adventures, his love for the Dakotah woman Minnehaha, his slaying of the evil magician Pearl-Feather, his invention of the written language and the death of Minnehaha in a severe winter. The poem closes with the approach of a birch canoe containing “The Priest of Prayer”, the “Pale face”. Hiawatha welcomes him, the “Black-robed Chief”, who brings the word of Jesus Christ. Hiawatha and the chiefs accept the Christian message and Hiawatha sails off towards the sunset and departs forever.
The Really Exciting Part!!
Of all the twenty- three chapters of Longfellow’s poem, one has leapt out of the page to me! Chapter eight, entitled “Hiawatha’s Fishing”. Longfellow gives an account of how Hiawatha built his canoe, what magic!
The native American tribes were deeply respectful of Mother Nature; never taking more than they needed from the land. In this chapter of the poem, Hiawatha builds his canoe, asking permission from the trees before he strips them of bark, branches, roots and sap. He also asks the porcupine for some quills so that he might decorate his canoe.
Hiawatha and the birch tree
The following lines from “Hiawatha’s Fishing” demonstrate the close bond of the Native American Hiawatha with Mother Nature.
“Give me of your bark, O Birch-tree,
Lay aside your white-skin wrapper” …
And the tree with all its branches
Rustled in the breeze of morning,
Saying, with a sigh of patience,
“Take my cloak, O Hiawatha!”
“Give me of your boughs, O Cedar!
Of your strong and pliant branches” …
Through the summit of the Cedar
Went a sound, a cry of horror,
Went a murmur of resistance;
But it whispered, bending downward,
“Take my boughs, O Hiawatha!”
“Give me of thy roots, O Tamarack!
Of your fibrous roots, O Larch-tree!” …
“And the Larch, with all its fibres,
Shivered in the air of morning,
Touched his forehead with its tassels,
Said, with one long sigh of sorrow,
“Take them all, O Hiawatha!”
“Give me of your balm, O Fir-tree!
Of your balsam and your resin,” …
And the Fir-tree, tall and sombre,
Sobbed through all its robes of darkness,
Answered wailing, answered weeping,
“Take my balm, O Hiawatha!”
“Give me of your quills, O Hedgehog!
All your quills, O Kagh the Hedgehog!
From a hollow tree the hedgehog,
With his sleepy eyes looked at him,
Shot his shining quills, like arrows,
“Take my quills, O Hiawatha!”
Thus the Birch Canoe was builded …
And the forest’s life was in it,
All its mystery and its magic,
All the lightness of the birch-tree,
All the toughness of the cedar,
All the larch’s supple sinews;
And it floated on the river,
Like a yellow leaf in Autumn,
Like a yellow water-lily.
Artists Responses to “The Song of Hiawatha”
Captivated by Longfellow’s poem, many artists responded through drawings, paintings and sculpture.
Hiawatha in marble Hiawatha and Minnehaha bronze
Edmonia Lewis 1868 Jacob Fjelde 1912
Metropolitan Museum of Art Minnehaha Falls, Minnesota
The Death of Minnehaha Minnehaha Feeding Birds
William de Leftwich Dodge 1885 Frances Anne Hopkins ca 1880
“It’s not often a people hand their conquerors the seeds of their own destruction, but that’s what the native Americans did when they introduced Europeans to birch bark canoe technology. Without the versatile craft, the exploration and exploitation of the interior of North America surrounding the Great Lakes probably would have taken a different course”
Those marvellous Ojibwa birch bark canoes/historyonthefox.wordpress.com Nov 4, 2013
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