Feature stories

Canoe Carving: A Revered and Ancient Art

Nearly everywhere you look in the traditional territories of Aboriginal peoples across Canada, there is water: a river, creek, lake or ocean. In the old days, these waterways served as roads and highways, an efficient way of getting from one village to another for trade and social gatherings.

Using resources close at hand, Aboriginal peoples developed watercraft suited to navigating the waterways of their territories.

As seagoing people, the Squamish First Nation on the West Coast of British Columbia, for example, carved seven kinds of canoes, some of them big enough (up to 18 metres or 60 feet in length) and sturdy enough to withstand the rough ocean waters of Howe Sound and Georgia Strait.

Traditionally, smaller racing canoes were used to intercept invading tribes. Single, double, six-man and 11-man vessels, these were sleek in design for speedy manoeuvering.  

Today, there is a resurgence of interest among Aboriginal people in canoe building and canoe racing. And use of these carefully crafted vessels to access fishing and hunting grounds and visit neighboring Aboriginal communities is on the rise.

The materials used for carving canoes varies across the country, and depends very much on geography and resources. West coast First Nations, for example, used red cedar, once an abundant resource along British Columbia's coast and large enough for carving the bigger sea-going canoes.

The largest and most seaworthy of the Squamish canoes, used to travel the open ocean, are high in the bow and stern. Known as Kxwu7lh (keh-ugh-owe-thl), these average 14 to 18 metres (45 to 60 feet) in length and one and a half to two metres (five to six feet) in width. Smaller vessels called Nexws Chá7ul (chah-ch-owe) have distinctive straight sterns and projecting counters. These were traditionally used for seal hunting, fishing and personal use.

Inland, more streamlined craft, such as shovelnose or river canoes, were needed for manoeuvering the many rivers and creeks of the country. Aboriginal women often used a compact, nimble, one-to two-person craft to gather shellfish or navigate sloughs when gathering plants, berries and medicines.

The Lil'wat First Nation, an inland British Columbia people, built three kinds of T'laoz s ku stswaw cw (river canoes): a wide and stable one for transporting game and goods; a larger one for use on the rough waters of a lake; and a smaller, more contoured one for traveling.

Lil'wat canoes are traditionally made from cottonwood, Sitka spruce or the much preferred red cedar.

In the old days, if a wind-fallen tree wasn't big enough for a canoe, Lil'wat canoe builders would fell one using wedges made from ironwood or a type of green rock found only in a few places around Mount Currie. They used the wedges to cut into the base of the tree before burning through the trunk with hot rocks.

The best section of wood was used for the bottom of the boat. Canoe builders would remove the bark and chip off the green wood before deciding on the length of the finished canoe and burning off the excess log. The discarded bits were piled on top of the log and set on fire to burn a hollow along the upper side. The hollow was burned and scraped with a wedge and granite hammer until the canoe took shape.

The vessel's exterior was smoothed off and then smoked with fir pitch wood. Then the hollow was half-filled with water, into which hot rocks and salmon heads were placed. The salmon oil soaked into the wood, "seasoning" it, before canoe builders put small sticks between the gunwales of the boat and tightly covered the top. The steam and pressure from the sticks shaped the canoe, forcing out the gunwales.

Canoes, old and new, are expected to last 200 years or more with regular painting. In the old days, the more distinctive, bigger vessels were valuable and often given as gifts.

The wood needed for some of these canoes is extensive, particularly for the larger sea-going canoes of the coastal First Nations. The Squamish people found a way to cut slabs of cedar without felling the trees. They'd find a cedar tree that leaned slightly, severing the trunk about half way through. Then yew-wood or deer-horn wedges were driven in at the deepest part of the cut on both sides of the trunk. The weight of the leaning trunk on the uncut side and the force of the wedges caused the tree to split, the cut part falling to the ground, the other now-tapered part remaining in the ground.

The bigger canoes were usually built right where the tree was cut, the canoe builders often working from sunup to sundown. Typically, it took a month to finish a vessel.

The reverence among Aboriginal people for their canoe builders continues today. They believe that the wood used for carving has its own power and when the carvers cut into it, they take in that power.