One of the oldest-acknowledged examples of a Native American birch-bark canoe is on show at a museum in Maine, wherein indigenous tribes have used them for lots of years. The canoe placed on display on Thursday dates to the mid-1700s, contributors of the Pejepscot Historical Society stated. It’s an example of the form of canoe that turned into severely critical to the history and way of life of the Wabanaki, the primary human beings of parts of northern New England and Atlantic Canada.This form of canoe changed into “extremely important on your family’s survival” for the Wabanaki human beings, said the Penobscot Nation’s tribal historian James E. Francis Sr. The Penobscot, one among 4 Wabanaki tribes nevertheless current in Maine, nevertheless build them today.
“The canoe took you to the ones places which you had to pass and the panorama that had the meals. For a riverine human beings just like the Penobscot, some might argue that the birch bark canoe is the most important technology that we’ve got,” Francis said.
The historical society came into the possession of the canoe in 1889 and lately had it carbon dated, said Larissa Vigue Picard, government director of the society. It changed into donated to the society after being handed down for generations in the own family of Harpswell, Maine, sea captain William Barnes, who obtained it as a present from a tribe, she stated.
It’s certainly one of few early birch bark canoes nevertheless in lifestyles because of the fragility of the cloth. The 16½-foot canoe had spent the ultimate 3 a long time in a barn, Vigue said. It suffered fairly from being uncovered to the climate, but a master birch bark canoe builder has been running to conserve it since the summer time.
The builder, Steve Cayard, of Wellington, Maine, has been running on birch bark canoes for more than 40 years. He said the Native American models served because the template for modern canoes. Birch bark is flexible and the canoe itself in all fairness light, which made it the fabric of desire for Native American canoe makers wherever it changed into to be had, he stated.
“It made longer trips possible, and it facilitated trade,” Cayard stated. “The birch bark canoes are the ancestors of all contemporary canoes.”