ends were fastened to the gunwales. Several bars rather than
seats were laid across the canoe from gunwale to gunwale, the small
roots of the spruce fir afforded the fibre with which the bark was
sewn or stitched, and the gum of the pine tree supplied the place of
tar and oakum. Bark, some spare fibre, and gum were always carried in
each canoe for repairs, which were constantly necessary (one
continually reads in the diaries of the pioneers of "stopping to gum
the canoe"). The canoes were propelled with paddles, and occasionally
a sail.

[Footnote 13: In the far north-west, on the rivers of the Pacific
slope, the natives used spruce-fir bark instead of birch.]

The aborigines of Newfoundland--the Beothiks--are said to have known
the birch-bark canoe, framework canoe, but to have employed
"dug-outs"--hollowed tree trunks. The canoes of the Mandans of the
upper Missouri basin were like coracles, of circular form, made of a
framework of bent willow branches over which was stretched a raw
bison-hide with the hair inside. This was sewn tightly round the
willow rim. In lieu of a paddle they use a pole about five feet long,
split at one end to admit a piece of board about two feet long and
half a foot broad, which was lashed to the pole and so formed a kind
of cross. There was but one for each canoe. The paddler of this
coracle made directly for the opposite shore; every stroke he gave
turned his "dish" almost entirely round; to recover his position and
go on his intended route, he must give a stroke on the other side,
which brought him up again; and so on till he got over, not without
drifting down sometimes nearly a mile.

Alexander Henry, jun., thus describes a canoe of the Clatsop people on
the Lower Columbia (Pacific coast, opposite Vancouver Island): "This
was a war canoe--the first of the kind I had seen. She was about
thirty-six feet long and wide in proportion, the stem rising upright
about six feet, on top of which was a figure of some imaginary monster
of uncouth sculpture, having the head of a carnivorous animal with
large erect ears but no body, clinging by arms and legs to the upper
end of the canoe, and grinning horribly. The ears were painted green,
the other parts red and black. The stern also rose about five feet in
height, but had no figure carved on it. On each side of both stem and
stern broad strips of wood rose about four feet, having holes cut in
them to shoot arrows through. She had a high sprit-sa