Closed Captions Audio Described

Museum curator Bob Chino examines the history, construction, and cultural significance of dugout canoes among Plateau tribes, particularly the Nez Perce. He discusses the Nez Perce National Historical Park's canoe collection, documents canoes across the Pacific Northwest, describes how Lewis and Clark's expedition acquired canoes in 1805, and explains the design adaptations Plateau peoples made for different river conditions and water systems.

Transcript

0:00 Ok, it's 9 a.m. So we're getting ready to start. I wanna welcome everyone to the 10 of many voices. Uh We are the only National Park Service site that comes to you. So, out of 390 National Park sites in the US, we ended up in Stevenson, Washington today. And I think we're very glad to be here. We're excited. So thanks for having us
0:23 now, I don't want to waste any more of Bob's time. So I'm gonna introduce him. We have Bob Chino with here, he's with the National Park Service and he's going to speak about dugout canoes of the Columbia River Plateau. So please give him a warm welcome.
0:39 Thank you. Uh I just wanna make sure all the technology is functioning here. So first thing I am the museum curator at Nez Perce National Historical Park, which is located about eight miles east of Lewiston Idaho. Lewiston. Idaho is on the Snake River
1:01 on the opposite side of the river is Clarkston, Washington. So you can probably guess who came through there in 1804. Uh Our park was established in 1964 and it's kind of an unusual Park in the sense that um
1:27 we are made up of disconnected sites in four states. There are 38 sites that tell the story of the relationship between Euro Americans and the Nez Perce people and the relationship between the Nez Perce and their neighbors. So the most of the sites are in Idaho, but some are in Montana
1:52 in Northeastern Oregon. And in northeastern Washington, we tell the story of the Nez Perce War of 1877 of uh Oregon Trail immigration of the missionary era, all sorts of things. The site where our park headquarters is located has been a living site for the Nez
2:16 Perce people for over 10,000 years. The archaeological record supports that as well as the tribal history. So
2:29 Nesper Park is, is uh known primarily for its museum collection. We are considered to have the finest collection of plateau material culture in the world. We certainly have the best documented collection of material associated with the families and various traditions
2:52 uh on the plateau and in the Nesper community, one of the striking features of our collection is the material culture associated with the introduction and use of the horse. In this course, our uh noted horse racers and breeders have been for over 300 years.
3:15 They're one of the few tribes that actually practice selective breeding of horses and they have a reputation throughout the the plateau for taking good care of their horses and having large herds and that sort of thing. Lewis and Clark talked about that at great length when they came down uh on the Weak Prairie and came down into the Clearwater Valley
3:39 and got to know the Nesper.
3:44 Much of this material culture is uh significant in terms of its age. And we have spent a great deal of time documenting uh artifacts in, for example, the Spalding Collection. Um I don't know if most of you are from around here. You may remember in 1995 the tribe
4:06 uh organized a huge national fundraising effort to uh bring this collection back from Ohio. This is material that was collected by Henry Spalding in 1836 when he established his mission on Lap Way Creek, sent back to a doctor in Ohio named Dudley Allen. And the material resided there
4:30 until the 19 eighties when it was loaned to the Park Service uh for exhibit at our museum in 1993 they asked that the collection be returned. Uh People were afraid that they had a buyer for the, for the material and uh the Nesper of course, were very upset about this and wanted the material to stay
4:55 in Nesper country. So they raised money to purchase it from the Ohio Historical Society.
5:03 But for the time prior to the introduction of the horse people, not just in this first country, but all over the plateau traveled. Uh the very extensive water highway system of the Columbia Basin. And Fraser River Thompson river basins by boat. Uh
5:27 When you look at the organization of village life, when you look at family structures, uh when you look at the studies that ethnographers have done over the years, you begin to understand that settlement and almost all human activity was dictated by the water that was around
5:52 the rivers, the creeks, the lakes. And so it, it is a natural thing to understand that people would have developed all sorts of watercraft. And that's true of the plateau. Uh There were hide boats, there were uh boats made of bark, there were various types of rafts that people made,
6:14 but the primary means of transportation and the thing that seemed to be most universal on the plateau and throughout the world, in fact, is the dugout canoe,
6:30 dugout canoes, as I say, are known worldwide, nearly every culture on the planet. Um It's built them and used them at one time. Um This is a very interesting one from, from Vietnam that was recovered a few years ago. Uh Some ethnographers and scientists estimate that people were using dugout canoes as long as 40,000 years ago.
6:54 When you understand that that was about the time that Australia was inhabited from South Asia and from Southeast Asia, you have to ask yourself, how did people get around to all those islands in the Pacific? And how did they get to Australia? The likely answer is they did it by dugout
7:18 some of the oldest does that seem like it's in focus to you now. It doesn't, to me either. Is there any way of getting that and focus?
7:43 Yeah. I don't think we're gonna be able, I think that's ac problem. I think that's a cable problem from the computer face problem. We have to fix it would be done. Are, are we stuck with it? Yeah, for now, I don't think I'm gonna be able to work on.
8:01 Uh Apparently we're, we're stuck with it the way it is. So, uh some of the oldest canoes that have been found in, in North America have been recovered in Florida. On the, there's a, an area near Gainesville called Lake Picco that uh apparently was what people refer to as a canoe nursery. There are canoes that have been recovered there
8:25 archaeologically that date back over 8000 years ago. Uh This is drawings of several of the canoes. There have been over 300 canoes uh discovered in that one lake in Florida in the Pacific Northwest. We don't have such a rich archaeological record of canoes
8:49 and we're not exactly certain why that is it. It may be that uh we just haven't found them, but it may also be cultural. There may be cultural reasons why there aren't that many,
9:07 I was talking a little bit ago about the uh the river network and unfortunately, this just doesn't show up very well because of the thing being kind of out of focus. But um this is just the Columbia drainage. This doesn't include up into British Columbia doesn't include the Fraser River and Thompson river drainages,
9:30 which is also part of the, what they call the Columbia plateau or the plateau cultural area. So, what you begin to see is this huge system of highways, of water, highways. And as I mentioned, the canoes were, the canoes were the, the Chevys, the suvs, whatever. It's what people use.
9:52 Not only to move up and down the rivers, but it's what people used to cross rivers and people use canoes to trade and to visit, uh, with relatives to go to places where they would then go, uh,
10:14 and hunt and gather in, in different areas in their, in their uh seasonal realm.
10:23 I want to talk a little bit about the canoe collection that we have because this is kind of what got me started in, uh, investigating dugout canoes on the plateau. Um We own four canoes, actually, we own three and the Nesper tribe owns one and we know of two others. Uh One was just recently discovered. Um
10:48 These canoes have the, these first two canoes that I'm gonna show you have, have a fairly long history, not only in terms of the park, but in terms of the area there, there are uh affidavits associated with these two canoes, uh, 5047 and 5048 in our museum collection. Um that date one of them
11:13 to about the time of Lewis and Clark and date the other one to the 18 thirties. Uh because it was made specifically for the, the missionary Henry Spalding that came in 1836.
11:35 This is the, the two pictures on the right. And actually the, the one where the conservation treatment work is being done um is the canoe that was, that was built in the 18 thirties and associated with a number of well known uh Nesper Chiefs that were involved in the construction of it. Um
11:57 When I started looking at these canoes in terms of their physical condition and to try to understand their significance in relation to our museum collection. And in relation to the region, I wanted also to be able to uh get an assessment done by a wood conservator as to their
12:19 physical condition, their state of preservation and what we could do to keep them from deteriorating, from having their physical condition deteriorate anymore. So we were able to get a grant through the park service through the ethnography program to fund uh the assessment, the treatment work and research to try to understand
12:43 the significance of our particular collection of four canoes. Um What that did in a nutshell was it took me around the plateau um into down in the Willamette Valley, uh up in the Okanogan Valley in British Columbia um over into Montana, southern Idaho,
13:05 any area where I might find canoes that were made by plateau people. So far, I have found about 42 canoes in different museums and cultural centers and visitor centers around the Pacific Northwest. And what I do with those is uh
13:28 I make scale drawings of them. I measure them and make drawings of them and photograph them and try to gather whatever curatorial information
13:40 they have uh that, that talks about the history of them or who made them or the provenance or whatever
13:48 this is. Uh another of the canoes that's, that's in our collection. This canoe is actually owned by the Nez Perce tribe. It was given to them in the 19 eighties. Um
14:02 It was, it was originally located in this field in the, in the upper right in the 19 sixties when they were doing archaeology along the Snake River in preparation for uh the construction of lower monumental dam. And um the archaeologist would walk by it every day and they finally talked to the landowner,
14:25 the landowner agreed to give it to uh the Museum of Native American Culture at Gonzaga University in Spokane. And when that closed down in the eighties, it was given to what's now called the Mac uh Museum of Art and Culture in Spokane. But the Mac didn't want this because it was a 30 ft long hunk of wood.
14:49 And they didn't really have any place to put it and didn't know what they were going to do with it. So because it was collected off Nes Per's land. Originally, they offered it to the tribe, the tribe took it and our maintenance division went up with the tribe and created it up and brought it down to the park. And so um
15:10 this is the the same canoe undergoing treatment work in uh 2001.
15:17 The fourth canoe in art collection is uh well documented to around 1900. It was made by a man named Silas Lawrence. We used it for fishing and travel on the Clearwater River around 1900. Um You can see from this picture in the lower right. Why I was beginning to be concerned about the physical condition
15:39 of the canoes. There was, it was starting to be splitting and material loss and I figured if this collection was worth anything, then we had to take some kind of action to, to stop this material loss.
15:56 This is a very interesting story. This is a canoe that's uh located in uh Helena Montana. It's owned by the Montana Historical Society. It was made by the brother of the half brother of chief Joseph, uh Olicott who was killed in the 1877 war. And uh Olicott and Joseph had family in the
16:20 Kalispell area, uh Western Montana and it was made for the the family, relatives to use there as a ferry. Uh Prior to 1877
16:36 we also have uh one of only two toy canoes that I know of from the plateau. Now, I I want to make it clear that when I talk about the plateau, I'm not talking about the Northwest coast. Uh This is a whole different ball game than Northwest Coast uh canoe culture because that culture on the northwest coast is as most of you
17:01 are probably aware is alive and well people are making and using canoes uh traveling on the rivers. But in the plateau, that's essentially not the case. The canoe culture has pretty much died out. There aren't too many people around anymore that know how to make canoes. But there is interest.
17:22 Uh And I think part of that interest has been sparked by the activity on the coast. Uh But also up in British Columbia to, to revive canoe making and canoe use and to get a better understanding of how important this was in uh in the culture of the people on the plateau. And as I say, I only, we have one of the toy canoes. This is the one
17:45 we have. Uh And I know of one other one that's in uh the museum in Victoria, British Columbia. But it's a, it's a shuswap canoe. It's a Suwan toy.
18:07 And again, just to look at the, the whole issue of material loss. This picture in the lower right is the stern end of this canoe in 1940 and the same canoe in 1998 uh this canoe unfortunately spent about 20 years out in the open before it came into the control of the park service.
18:33 So the treatment work involved uh doing a complete materials analysis, uh examining the wood structure, um
18:45 mechanical cleaning as well as stabilization. And what, what the conservators did was they would, they would mix up a compound of the base of which is this stuff called PV B, Polyvinyl Buttery. And they mix it with alcohol and you can thin it out to the point where you can actually inject it into the wood fibers and it's,
19:11 it consolidates the wood fibers. Uh If it's a little thicker, about a 10 or 12% solution, then you can actually use it as a glue to put pieces back together, to glue pieces back together. Another thing they were able to do was uh to build these uh different kinds of structures to support the canoes, to keep them from
19:35 losing their shape anymore that they already had. And if you had sections like on the right there, you can see where that, that piece of the gun is split. The split runs all the way down pretty much the length of the canoe. So using uh plexiglass, uh little fittings and bulkheads, you can keep all that material in place so that
19:59 people can see what the thing looks like, what, what the shape is and to preserve the shape, there's very little effort at trying to uh restore. In other words, put things back the way they were.
20:15 Another aspect of the research that I've been doing uh involves historic images. Now, obviously, you're only gonna be able to go to a certain point uh when you're dealing with photography. But one of the interesting things that I found is that canoes in our particular area were used as late as the 19 sixties for fishing.
20:40 Uh These are all photographs taken around the area um of our park and are in the, the historic image collection at our park.
20:59 So this is uh I'm gonna just take you on a kind of quick little trip around the plateau from a canoe point of view. Um
21:09 As I mentioned, I've, I've been down uh as, as far south as Klamath country. Um all the way down to the Nevada border. Uh Idaho, most of Washington, uh the better part of British Columbia, uh looking at at canoes, most of the canoes that I found uh are in
21:33 some type of cultural center setting, either in a museum or a tribal visitor center or something like that. So, um uh all these pictures you see will be mostly indoors. Uh The first stop in relation to where we are is uh is one of them country. One of them are cousins of the Nez
21:57 Perce as it were part of the same linguistic family. Uh If you go up to the Dallas up the river a little ways, you can see this canoe on the left. Uh, it's the second largest canoe that I've looked at and documented. It's a little over 33 ft long. And, uh,
22:20 the one on the right is at, uh, one of them Dam Visitor center. We know who the makers are of both of those canoes. Um There are quite a few canoe families among the, one of them people still interested in making canoes. Uh, the last time we know of people using canoes.
22:42 Uh On that stretch of the Columbia was in the 19 fifties.
22:53 This is up in uh the Okanogan Valley around Lake Okanogan. You have all these towns that uh Penticton and Vernon and uh nearly every museum up in that area has uh has at least one dugout canoe. These are, are mostly sous swap made canoes from farther north,
23:16 but also the Okanogan are making canoes as well. Um These tend to have a, a fairly clear cut water. They tend to be a little thicker. Sometimes they have flared sides. Uh They were used in rivers as well as on the lakes. So that accounts uh to some degree for their, their shape
23:38 uh a little closer down uh up in Coeur d'alene country. This is a canoe that was collected off of Wolf Creek in the 19 forties. Uh Some ethnographers suggested that the Co Danes did not even make dugout canoes. Uh But we know that from their own accounts, that's not the case.
23:59 One thing about ethnography that I learned is you have to pay close attention to who the ethnographer spoke to when they were getting information about the particular culture that they were dealing with. Uh If you talk to somebody who didn't, who wasn't involved in a particular kind of activity,
24:22 they would tell you sometimes that people didn't do it or that they didn't know anything about it. The ethnographer would often conclude then that uh oh, those people didn't do that. Uh But that's uh almost never the case.
24:40 This is one of the archaeological canoes that I was able to see. The Canadian government. The British Columbia government did what they call the boundary survey in the 19 seventies. Uh They did archaeological surveys all along the border with the US and Canada
24:59 and they found uh a canoe beaching site that had been submerged where there were uh roller logs and about a half a dozen canoes that were in a little inlet of the river, the Kettle river and they had been submerged when that section of the river was inundated.
25:21 Uh When they finished building the Chief Joseph Dam up in northern Washington.
25:27 Unfortunately, this canoe, when it was uh put up, it's actually on display on top of uh an exhibit cabinet. And when the, when they brought the canoe in
25:42 the guys that had to get it up on top of the cabinet, there were just two of them working there that day and they decided that they couldn't lift it, just the two of them. So, what they did was they cut it in half and lifted each half. And when I was examining it, uh it was the curator of the museum walked by and I asked her why the canoe had been cut in half and
26:07 her jaw dropped and her eyes got as big as half dollars and she said it's cut in half. And so she climbed up on the ladder with me and uh saw that had been cut in half that it, it's unfortunate that that's what happened. But at the same time, it allowed me to get really good measurements to get the cross section of, of that canoe. So there's always,
26:31 there's always a, a silver lining in every cloud.
26:37 Uh This is a canoe that this is a, a very nice story of this canoe was in the Schafer Museum in Winthrop Washington for a number of years. And when I went up to look at it, um and document it, I, I talked to the museum about, I said, you know, the meto people are still around.
27:00 They're on the Colville reservation. I said, why don't you give this back to them? So they did um they organized the load ceremony and, and it's now on the Caldwell reservation and you can see it in the, the tribal museum on the Colville reservation
27:22 when I was up in British Columbia. I had the very fortunate uh experience of meeting a couple of people who are involved in the revival of can you making up there. And uh this guy in the upper right is Herman Edward and Gordy Marsha is uh paddling. One of the boats he made. Uh
27:45 I got the grand tour, uh learned about the different tools and things that they used in uh in canoe making. Apparently uh automobile leaf springs make uh really good gouges. When you work them down, these tools on the lower right are all made from for car leaf springs. It's a good, good quality metal and uh
28:11 they use axes as well as axes and different kinds of choppers for, for close in work. Most of this work is done uh
28:23 with without the use of burning. Uh I'll talk a little bit about burning because uh Lewis and Clark talk about burning.
28:34 So in uh in 2000, they did their first big public activity and that was what they called unity trek. And they paddled from the north end of Lake Okanogan down to Omak, Washington and met up with the Okanogan that live. There's Okanagan, both in British Columbia and in Washington State. So, uh they met up with their cousins in, in Washington and um
28:59 had a big feast and, and have uh been sharing the canoe building knowledge and everything ever since that time. So it's uh it's an ongoing activity this canoe that's uh that's highly decorated here is, uh, as you might suspect is the women's canoe and, uh, they said no, we're not gonna have just some
29:24 plain looking thing. We're gonna have some stuff on our. So, and the men don't get to go in it.
29:32 Uh, this was a, a real treat for me. Not just to go out and paddle on the lake. But, uh, I was amazed that if, if you have an idea of how important t leaves are to t uh plants are to Indian people. Um There's not a lot of t leave left un unless you go down uh in Klamath
29:55 country in southern Oregon. Um But all around the north end of Okanogan Lake that is plants that are growing there. Um As, as all to leave. And it was uh when I showed these pictures at home, people didn't care so much about the canoes. They said, where, where are those t we want to go off and gather to
30:25 when Lewis and Clark came through Nesper S country in 1805, they stopped at the confluence of the Clearwater River and the north fork of the Clearwater. Uh If you look in the, in the blue part of that picture, now, there is a thing called Dworshak Dam
30:49 there, it's about 400 ft high and it's changed the, the physical nature of this area. But this is the area that the twisted hair took the Lewis and Clark expedition to because they were looking for uh trees they could use to, to knock down and make their canoes and
31:14 this is what the area probably was like prior to to lean Park. It was a, it was a known camping area. Um There's been extensive archaeological work done there. Uh That dates the site to thousands of years ago. So it was a well known place on the river for fishing and for uh for boat building.
31:40 This is a painting by uh Nakia Williamson who's a tribal member earlier. I showed you some of the sketches that he'd done uh doing research on uh horse, horse gear,
31:56 Lewis and Clark. Don't say much about the canoes that they built at canoe camp. In fact, all they actually do say is they built four large canoes and one small canoe. And they sometimes refer to the small canoe as their, as their scout, the scout. But
32:19 one of the, one of the things that I have, several people have talked to me about, you know, what their boats probably look like, how big they were, what they were made out of. Um And so what I've tried to do with the help of other people who are, are familiar with, with the water travel and canoe making and particularly uh rafting and that sort of thing on the
32:44 Clearwater and Snake River to try to get an idea of uh of how their boats might have looked. Now, these are the three basic forms. There's, there's really, uh, I've identified four basic forms of canoes that were made in, up in our area. Uh, but this just gives you an idea of
33:08 what Lewis and Clark saw. You got to remember that these guys were picked because they, they were competent and capable people, they knew what they were doing, they knew how to adapt in various situations to take advantage of the local knowledge in different situations. So, uh,
33:29 in order for them to be successful, they had to have those kinds of skills. And when they were there at canoe camp in September of 1805, they decided that they were going to leave a certain amount of their gear. They, they did leave all their horse gear, um, twisted hairs band,
33:53 took care of their horses and their horse equipment for the saddles and that sort of thing.
34:00 They also understood at this point because they, they talked a great deal with the Indians. The Nez Perce knew the river all the way down to the ocean. They had traveled it many times. They regularly came to Su Lio. Uh, they knew the people up and down the river, they knew what Lewis and Clark were gonna encounter. Um,
34:23 they told them the number of rapids that they would have to go through and which ones they would, they could probably run and which ones they could port each, uh, several Indians drew maps for them. Uh, and that's one of the, one of the maps redrawn by uh Clark, but they, they knew what was ahead.
34:46 So that's one thing to keep in mind when you think about the, the, the boats that they made.
34:53 So, what I ended up doing was everybody says a picture is worth 1000 words. Um I ended up making conjectural drawings of what I think the large canoes were like and probably what the small canoes were like. And people often say the canoes are made out of Ponderosa pine. So people say, well,
35:17 you can't find a Ponderosa pine up there. Now, that's big enough to make a, a canoe 50 ft long. And, and, and that's true down by the river. You can't, but 200 years ago you could, and when you think about what they had to put in their canoes, there were 35 people.
35:42 Um And they built five boats.
35:46 So on average, you're gonna have to put seven people in each boat and you're gonna have to put, I made a kind of a partial list of, we don't know exactly what they had left at that time because they didn't keep any kind of running tally of what they were using.
36:07 But they had desks, they had camping gear, they had all their botanical specimens. Um They had all the equipment they needed for their, for their firearms. Uh They had surveying equipment. Uh We know they traded for at least 20 bags of canvas roots, uh big bags of roots. So
36:30 they had a lot of stuff and they knew they were gonna be on the river for about two months. They also had the experience of having come from Mandan country to the rocky mountains, coming up the Missouri river in canoes that they built. They talk incessantly about
36:52 how small the canoes were, how they didn't make enough of them. They made 88 small canoes and they were hoping to use this. They, they made a metal frame boat and they were gonna cover it with uh with elk hides and by the time they got enough hides to do it, they were out of the area where they could get good pitch to seal the thing up. And so it didn't work.
37:16 So that was another frustrating aspect for them that they didn't have this boat. So I think when they got to, to canoe camp, when they came over, uh Lolo Pass and settled into Nesper country to make their canoes, they were determined to make the boats big enough so that they would be able to put all their equipment in
37:37 and be comfortable enough for the two month trip down to the Pacific. So these are the reasons why I think the boats were as big as, as they are or as they, as they were.
37:54 Um This is a canoe probably about 25 or 30 ft long. This was taken on the upper Columbia. Uh y from our guys, this canoe is uh loaded with stuff and you see where this fellow is sitting, you saw in that one picture of the, of the, one of them canoes,
38:18 you see where the guy is sitting in the stern of the boat. Canoes on the plateau in general were made to be paddled by one person from the stern.
38:30 And one of the ways you can always tell Indian made canoes is the, the physical characteristics of their construction. And in a nutshell, what people did was they, they'd knock a tree down the top end of the tree
38:50 would always be the stern of the boat. The lower end would be the bow. Uh specific gravity of the wood is such that if you take, say a 40 ft log, it's gonna be heavier on one end than the other. Ok? You want that heavy end to be the bow because somebody's gonna be in the stern, paddle the boat.
39:14 So then when you loaded the boat to travel, if it was just one person, you loaded the boat from the center out to the ends, that way, the boat was always balanced. And the Nez Perce say that if the boat was well made, it didn't matter whether you were going up river or down river, it was just as, just as easy to handle.
39:36 So when you start putting more people in the boat, you're doing the same thing, you're balancing the load and you're balancing the people. The other characteristic of, of Indian made canoes is that they understood about the structure of the tree. The s the center pith of the tree is, is not very stable,
39:57 but the wood just to the outside of that is the strongest wood. So that's what you want to be the floor of the canoe and the lower edges of the sides. So when you look at canoes from the end, you can see whether or not that that center section is there in relation to, to the floor.
40:22 Um
40:24 I don't know if that makes any sense or not, but uh no, the problem you always had once you carved out all that, that soft wood from the middle and had your firm floor was the ends. So people used various techniques to, to solve the problem of the wood deteriorating on the ends. But when you look at the pictures
40:48 of old canoes and you see that there's material loss and damage those pictures I showed you. It's almost always on the on the ends where you had to retain that, that pith wood from the center of the tree.
41:06 So these guys get in there ne per style canoes, they're plateaus, style canoes and they start paddling down the river. Things are going really great until they start to get to where the Columbia, you know, past where the snake and the Columbia come together and the river starts to get a little wider and you've got gorge winds and you've got chop and all that sort of thing
41:30 that you can see out on the river any day. And then these guys are, they're up against the Washington bank of the river kind of creeping down, uh taking it easy. They realize that their boats aren't the best design for that section of the river. The difference between the Nez Perce canoes with their straight sides for the most part
41:56 and then you start to get down into one of them country and the sides are flared just a little bit. They're dealing with the river conditions there. That design is a function of the river conditions that they have to deal with. And uh when they get,
42:15 when they get down to. So Lio and they do this one portage and they come up over the, the rocks and Clark sees this canoe that he describes as having a point pointed in and flared sides. This is what he's talking about. And they, they took one look at this and they knew
42:39 this, that they, they wanted these boats, they wanted to have these boats because these boats were ideal for the conditions of the lower Columbia. And as we all know, these boats are also ideal for going out in the ocean, that's what they're made for. So this is the, the so called Chinook style
43:00 cedar canoe with flared sides, this particular one, this is one of the boats that I documented. This is in the Oregon Historical Society collection in Portland. And it's a Quinault made canoe, but I documented it because it was used its entire life on the lower Columbia.
43:21 But it has those uh familiar characteristics of, of Lower Columbia boats.
43:30 And
43:33 you see what they did. These guys were not artists by the way. Uh but they, they illustrated these boats because I think they, they were so unusual. It was something that they had never seen before. They were very complimentary of the skills that the people have in being, being able to uh use these boats on the Lower Columbia.
43:56 Uh Regardless of the weather conditions, I've only got five minutes left. So I'm gonna go kind of fast. Um This canoe is in wall port right now, but it's also, it's exactly like a canoe that they describe. Um when they were in that area where Portland Airport is now,
44:20 they came on to an island where there were a lot of plank houses and they describe 100 boats uh up on the shore behind the houses. And this is what they're describing. This is a kind of boat that people use to gather. Uh uh Wapato
44:38 and it was, it was used mostly by women. But if you wanna see this boat, you have to go down to Wal Park because that's where it is. Don't ask me why this one is uh
44:51 in the uh Columbia River Maritime Museum. It's ac Laet canoe uh probably very similar but maybe smaller than what Lewis and Clark purchased from the Kath Lamons on their return trip.
45:08 Um These are pictures again up in Nez Perce country, historic images of canoes. Uh This guy in the lower right is eel fishing. He's got himself an eel in his dip net there.
45:26 Uh Things are still being found. This was in 2004, some scuba divers and don't ask me why these guys were in Lake Ponder Ray on New Year's Day scuba diving, but that's what they were doing. And they found this boat. So they called the Park service in to help them document it and they're still trying to decide what to do with it. But um
45:52 the evidence is all over the plateau that talks about canoe use and how important these things were to people. So this is the end for me. If you have any questions, I'll, I'll try to answer your question,
46:11 the rice to cook it.
46:13 Yeah, we could take maybe one or two questions, but let's do it. If you wanna look at some of the drawings, I have some of the drawings up here that I've made. I have about 25 talk about the maca
46:27 and they're good news. I didn't talk about the Macaws because I was talking about the plateau and I, the Macaws are on the coast. I'm very sensitive about the Macaws because my museum technician Linda Passano that works with me at the park is Macaw. She's married to Anne Pers, but she's a Williams. She's a Williams.
46:52 And, uh, so I pay, I pay pretty close attention to what the Macaws do. I've been out to near Bay several times and, yeah.
47:02 Ok. Well, I think, yeah, you can do one.
47:08 I apologize. I got here late and if you've already talked about this, uh please forgive. But uh several times in the journals, they refer to pulling over to dry out the canoes and to pitch uh them. And I'm not quite sure I understand what the difficulty is, especially, it seems like down in the Cal Lain area or Lumby area, they had to pull over to uh
47:32 make their canoes uh water worthy. Once again. Can you give a little bit of insight to that? Well, a lot of times when canoes are made, the wood, the wood is, the trees are taken down and then they're allowed to set for a while to kind of cure and then the boats are made. But what Lewis and Clark did was when they, when they cut the trees
47:56 and within 10 days they had all five of their canoes made. So I think what was going on was the wood was splitting in places and they were using uh pitch mixes to uh, to make repairs to seal the cracks.
48:14 Ok. Well, we're about out of time. So you're gonna have to grab Bob in the back of the tent if you have more questions for him. But let's give him a round of applause and thank you for coming today.
48:27 Ok.