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Part 4 The Builder

Albert Birote is a 67-year-old member ofthe Weymontaching Band, with a reputationas a good hunter and fisherman, and as acanoe builder. Another Dam C resident,his son's father-in-law, excelled him in thatrespect; Narcisse Coocoo's bark canoessold well, and he used to build two or threeevery summer. Since the latter's death,however, Albert seems to be taking his placein the art. Pit Neashit, a native of Waswa-nipi, who has lived with the group for a longt he , shows the same skill as a craftsman,but he is too old now for such strenuouswork. So Albert remains the only memberof the Weymontaching Band who can builda birchbark canoe.He learned his trade as a boy from hisfather, at a time when bark canoes seemstil l to have been in frequent use. Hehelped his father on many occasions, learn-ing the techniques of construction and themethods of treating the raw materials. Heknows the correct term for every part ofthe canoe. This is far from cornmon knowl-edge; many of the lndians seemed as in-terested as I was in the building of a birch-bark canoe, as if it were sornething theyhad never seen before. After his appren-ticeship, Albert built a number of canoes byhimself, including one built with materialsat hand one winter, when he had to getfrom his hunting grounds to the tradingpost; the trapping had been excellent thatyear and he needed two canoes to carryal1 the furs and equipment. Since that time,he had had only one opportunity to use histalents; that was ten years earlier, whensome Americans took hirn and another Ma-nouane lndian to New York, Boston andChicago, where they buil t a birchbark canoeand a log cabin.When we asked him to build a canoe forthe Museum, he accepted eagerly. Althoughit was some years since he had built one,he had no trouble in applying his skills toeach technical problem as it arose. Nor doI feel that the authenticity of the canoe suf-fered from his lack of practice. an opinionborne out by Pit Neashit, the other oldcraftsman. who followed the sequence ofoperations closely. Pit's conviction that hewas still capable of doing the work madehim al1 the more critical, but on the wholehis reactions were favourable. He did feelthat the canoe was too shallow, yet itsdimensions are in accordance with those

given by Adney and Chapelle (1964: 111)for canoes from that region.The reactions of the builder himself tohis completed work are perhaps more sig-nificant. He was quite upset that the barkcovering bulged in severai places from thepressure of the ribs, a fault that could havebeen corrected by trimming the ribs slight-ly at the pressure points. A minor mlscalcula-tion at this step can result in a dispropor-tionately large distortion in the finishedcanoe, and only experience can give thecraftsman the accuracy required to producea perfect article. Similarly, some of the ribshad slipped too far between the main gun-wales and outwales, and had slightly liftedthe gunwale caps, which should lie fiat onthe upper edges of the gunwales. Albertprovided a similar explanation for this de-fect: the excessive length of some of theribs, and the fact that the gunwale capshad not been attached firmly enough to thegunwales. These are minor technical er-rors, for which there are specific remedies,and they do not indicate a lack of technicalknowiedge. It is rather a matter of therelative perfection of the finished product;absolute perfection can be achieved onlyby an experienced craftsman whose skill issupplemented by the familiarity with pro-portions and the accuracy that come onlywith a great deal of experience.Some construction details do not agreewith the description given by Adney andChapelle (1964: 107) for the Ttes de Boulebirchbark canoe. The rnost important dif-ference lies in the-use of a building frame..W e s a w how t h e ~~ assemb l ~ ~ con s i s t i n gofmain gunwales and temporac thwarts wasusedas a building frame in the early stagesof construction, and was later raised to gun-wale height. The same authors note (1964:109) that the stempiece usually stops shortbelow the gunwales instead of running be-tween the main gunwales and outwales aswe have described it. They also mention thatthe last rib is "broken".To what can these differences be at-tributed? Adney and Chapelle (1964) do notspecify the origin of the canoes they de-scribe, but give merely the general regionthey come from. Thus, for them the Ttesde Boule region includes the Algonkinbands of Lac Barrire and Grand-Lac-Victoria. There may-be minor variations-be:tween the bands in thWMmrice region,

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The Builder

but major ones if we include the Algonkinbands to the west, who, as we have pointedout, have no ties with the other groups. Wemust therefore leave the question un-answered for want of more information. Itshould be noted, however, that a birchbarkcanoe from Lac Barrire, which is in thepossession of the National Museums ofCanada, has its stempieces projecting be-tween the gunwales, in the manner de-scribed above. Moreover, ageneral styleof construction does not exclude the mssi-bility of minor variations even within a singlegroup. In practice, every craftsrnan has athis disposal a whole range of techniquesfrorn which he can select those that bestsuit his purpose. Details of construction mayalso be rnodified to suit the quality of thematerials, the requirernents of a rnultipur-pose craft, and the manner in which it will-e used.