The Canoe: An Illustrated History (Hardcover)

Jim Poling, Sr. begins at the beginning with "The First Canoeists." Christopher Columbus writes of his astonishment at seeing canoes in action: "They are not so wide because they are made of a single log of timber, but a galley could not keep up with them in rowing for their motion is a thing beyond belief."

Pacific Coast canoes were made of cedar; northern inland canoes, of bark ( most often elm, hickory, spruce, and cedar). The "perfect material," birch, plentiful and remarkable, was used in the canoes of what would become the Canadian Maritime Provinces, northern New England, and Quebec, Ontario, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. In addition birch (or its bark) provided the material of choice for Indians' toboggans, snowshoes, utensils, children's toys - plus winter covers for wigwams, food wrapping, animal calls, arrows and quivers, among other things. Finally, there were skin canoes.

Poling describes the building of the various types of canoes. The initial contact between Europeans and the indigenous people of the North American continent is the focus of the second chapter. The canoe enabled access to inlands - and the ensuing frenzy of fur trading - that would otherwise have been impossible to accomplish on anything but waterways.

Poling describes in good detail various components of historic canoe culture among the sixteenth and seventeenth century European settlers, paying close attention to the New France coureurs de bois - " runners of the woods." These were physically sturdy young men employed to fan out into the deep north woods, make contact with Indians, and facilitate the fur trade. But once set free, these fellows almost to a man dropped out of the repressive seventeenth-century French culture they had known. They embraced the woods and the physically taxing but otherwise rather freewheeling nonChristian life to be lived there - to the utter dismay of the colonists back at the settlements. The coureurs comprised "a distinct social class in the new land [...] neither liked nor accepted by the establishment [...] disrespectful of authority, irreverent, and violent..." Their occasional temporary re-entry into the precarious settlements was always problematic. They openly patronized prostitutes and rejected conventional European customs and manners. The problem became so severe that "the matter was brought to Louis XIV, who issued a 1681 decree limiting the number of coureurs du bois. Those who ignored it were branded with the fleur-de-lis, the symbol of France, and third offenders got life on the galley ships." Poling adds: "The decree didn't work."

The beaver - mainstay of indigenous culture - is given good treatment in this book, and interesting tidbits are supplied - such as the fact that the French settlers enjoyed beaver meat to such an extent that "in an odd twist of logic someone persuaded the Roman Catholic Church to allow beaver consumption during Lent, when meat was forbidden. The argument was that the beaver spent most of its time in water and therefore was more fish than animal."

Additional chapters detail among other things the horrors of the various skirmishes and all-out wars between Europeans and Indians (no detail spared), the role of the canoe in war (transportation only, too tippy to be battleships) the canoe routes, freight, trade, and changes in canoe design and function. Finally, there is information on the modern face of canoeing, building your own, and resources for canoeists. This book lacks an index and a bibliography, but is otherwise a great read (and would be great read aloud) - and thoroughly worthwhile.