Lot 95
Algonquian Birch Bark Canoe, Avon Bay, Lake Joseph in the Muskokas, Ontario, c.1900
Exhibited:
This lot is available for preview and pickup offsite at Murray's Auctioneers in Ajax, Ontario. Please contact Matthew Vail (416-886-4167 or [email protected]) for preview and pick up information.
Note:
The people of the Eastern Woodlands like the Innu (Montagnais-Naskapi), Ojibwe, Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet) and Algonquin had been building and utilizing birchbark canoes for hundreds of years before the arrival of Europeans. The thousands of lakes and waterways of Ontario made the canoe an ideal form of transportation for voyageurs, who used them to explore and trade in the interior of the country, and to connect fur trade supply lines with central posts, notably Montreal.
Samuel de Champlain said that the canoe was “the only craft suitable” for navigation in Canada. Others claimed that European boats were “clumsy” and “utterly useless;” by comparison. Its use was adopted almost without exception. European explorers navigating inland Canada for the first time did so exclusively in birchbark canoes.