Our Heritage

The word " canoa " or " " appeared in the earliest writings about the First Peoples of the New World, and was adapted from the Arawak language of the Native Caribbeans. While the word simply referred to a boat or vessel in its original meaning, it has largely come to refer to a specific craft which is familiar to many people today.

However, there is an ancient and rich diversity in canoe shapes, construction and purpose, a knowledge that Native builders have refined over the past centuries. Some were elegantly carved and formed from the massive trees of the northern Pacific coast for trade, war and for hunting the great whales. Other builders carved smaller canoes, well suited for travelling rivers, creeks and small waterways. In the harsh treeless Arctic landscape, the generosity of the ocean and rivers provided Inuit builders with animals and driftwood, from which they perfected the seaworthy shapes of their covered hunting craft.

Throughout much of the rest of Canada, the rind of the White Birch tree helped Native builders to overcome the challenges of overland and coastal travel. Builders of bark canoes removed the supple skin from these trees, tailored them into carefully proportioned vessels of their own traditions, and lined the entire craft with a lightweight wooden frame. In a land crisscrossed by a myriad of rivers and creeks, the birch bark canoe provided the traveller with a craft that could carry a great load, was light enough to be carried as the need Birch bark canoe arose, and which could manage the rigours of early travel.

Early 18th-century commercial interests demanded that Europeans venture deeper into the North American continent, where they discovered extensive Aboriginal trade networks already in place along established canoe routes. Moreover, they found that their own heavy boats were not suitable for plying the lakes, rivers and . Knowledgeable river guides and canoe builders were engaged to "Voyageurs" by Frances Anne Hopkins (1838-1919) support their own expanding trade relations. Perhaps the most celebrated figure of this early commerce was the voyageur: that colourful paddler who remains enshrined beside the birch bark canoe in Canadian folklore today. By the late eighteenth century, large bark canoes paddled by voyageurs and used for distance transport had connected the businesses of the St. Lawrence valley with the Mississippi, as well as the western and northern reaches of the continent.

Our Canoeing Heritage

Paddler Profiles

This page provides profiles of selected paddlers who have contributed significantly to Canada's canoeing heritage in recent history.

• William and Mary Commanda • Victoria Jason • • Pierre Trudeau

William and Mary Commanda Builders and Artisans William (Morning Star) Commanda and his wife, Mary (née Smith; deceased) both learned traditional skills from their families, and together built more than 100 birch bark canoes, as well as snowshoes, exceptional wooden furniture, leather, bead and quill work. They strived to keep these skills alive among the Algonquin of Western Quebec, through books, documentaries and workshops, which William continues to conduct. William lives in Kitigan Zibi (Garden River), located 130 kilometres north of Ottawa in the Gatineau River valley. He teaches traditional skills to international audiences, reflecting his life experiences and the knowledge entrusted to him through ancient artifacts he has inherited. William Commanda Today, healthy birch trees, large enough to harvest for canoe building, are rare, and if this tradition is to survive, William Commanda urges us to rekindle our relationship with the Earth:

"The Creator's gifts from our Mother, The Earth, have been good and kind to us all, sustaining us throughout our history. Today, if we look around, we can witness the results of our disregard for her well-being. It is now time for us to recognize her needs, to care for her, to rebalance our relationship with her, for if we do not do this, our children and their children will have no future. This will require us to rightly assert our love for all things and each other. Today is a good day to begin this work."

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Victoria Jason Adventurer & Author Victoria Jason was the first woman to the Northwest Passage. She accomplished it in four summers, two of them alone along 2,000 kilometres of the Arctic Coast. Her journey is documented in her book Kabloona in the Yellow Kayak -- One Woman's Journey Through the Northwest Passage . Living at Mile 412 of the Hudson Bay railway among Cree neighbours created Victoria's love for the North. Recovery from a stroke made her determined to travel there. Her feeling for the North and its people took her back to Pelly Bay to teach the children and to help the Inuit set up their own eco- tourism business. TOP OF PAGE Victoria Jason helping Inuk paddler

Bill Mason Artist, Author & Film-maker As a child in Winnipeg, Bill Mason was captivated by canoes. Later when he worked as a commercial artist, he would quit his job each spring to spend the summer camping in the lake country east of Winnipeg, returning to his job in the fall. His art led to film-making, with a total of 18 award-winning films for the National Film Board, and to writing books in which the canoe was the central feature. The films to the Sea , The Song of the Paddle , and are only part of his legacy to canoeists.

TOP OF PAGE Legendary Canadian canoeist Bill Mason Pierre Elliott Trudeau Prime Minister of Canada (1968-1979, 1980-1984) As a young boy growing up in Montreal, Pierre Trudeau began preparing himself for a lifetime of exploring the natural world. At his family's summer cottage on Lac Tremblant, he trained himself to be a strong swimmer and canoeist. It was here, in the Laurentians, that forest, water and sky - the vastness of Canada - went into him and stayed with him forever. He was the first Prime Minister to explore all three dimensions of the wild, wet part of Canada. He did this as an ocean surfer, a scuba diver and as an accomplished canoe-tripper on several of the great rivers running into the Arctic Ocean. The canoe was one of his favourite ways of moving through the Pierre Elliott Trudeau's buckskin natural world. It took him to places that reflected the poetry of the jacket nation he loved. " a canoe is a source of enrichment and inner renewal," he once told me, "It carries a man into the truest part of himself."

Dr. Joseph MacInnis, Trudeau's friend for more than 30 years While Pierre Trudeau was Prime Minister, a record number of ten national parks were created, including the Nahanni National Park. He also instituted the Wild River Survey in which a group of young men canoed some of Canada's wildest rivers, between 1971 and 1974, using explorers' journals and some of the trip reports of Eric Morse as their guides. This led to the creation of the Heritage River System, devised to protect the future of Canada's important rivers. Trudeau was posthumously given the Bill Mason Award for outstanding contributions to canoeing heritage and river conservation, an award previously given to Bill Reid and Kirk Wipper.

Paddling a freighter canoe in 1971 (from Che-Mun, The Journal of Canadian Wilderness Canoeing ) Our Canoeing Heritage

Canoeing Cultures

The canoe is the greatest gift from Aboriginal cultures to all those who came after. The canoe of the Aboriginal Peoples is perhaps the ultimate expression of elegance and function in the world of watercraft. All its parts come from nature, and when it is retired, it returns to nature. Except for the tribes of the Plains, the canoe was vital to all Aboriginal cultures of Canada, each tribe being defined by the distinct shape of its canoe or kayak. It was not only the principal means of transportation, but was also critical to almost every facet of life; canoe and kayak builders were revered in their societies. Through the canoe and kayak, the centrality of Aboriginal Peoples to Canadian history can be honoured. The symbol of the canoe can do much to bring Aboriginal Peoples back to the centre of Canadian culture, rather than leaving them on the margins, where they all too often reside. Click to launch an interactive map