Canoe Museum, Peterborough, Ontario

Yesterday my husband and I visited Peterborough, Ontario. My daughter attended university here and when we would visit her, we all went out for a nice lunch or dinner together at one of the many wonderful restaurants in town. We had a nice lunch at Hot Belly Mama's yesterday and then we decided to visit the Canoe Museum. This building is full of canoes and kayaks, many of which were built by First Nations people from all across Canada. The museum is well set up so that you visit the oldest canoes and kayaks first and then work your way forward through time.

But my first visit was to the ladies' room ... I loved the sign on that door ;)

There's something so beautiful about canoes ... their shape, the cedar strips, the birchbark, the construction, the amazing handiwork ... all come together to create something so aesthetically pleasing. We've visited the museum a couple of times before, and I'm always amazed at this collection. There are so many canoes!! And they are all beautifully made.

And now I will just say .... there are a lot of photos here, and if you're not interested in canoes, let me save you some time and say don't bother with reading this post.

The dugout canoes are amazing. Basically, a tree is felled and the centre dug out. Hot rocks are placed inside the dug out portion to stretch the wood widthwise, which shrinks the wood in length. 

a wolf is carved in the tip of this canoe with paintings along the sides

 This is a very old dugout canoe ... just look at the grain in that wood!

Below is the whole dugout ... enormous!

Details of how to build your own ...

Another dugout canoe ...

A replica of a Haida war canoe, built from a single cedar log ...

Next on display was a vast collection of birch bark canoes, many of which were fashioned from one single piece of birch bark. You won't find a birch tree big enough these days to get such a big piece of bark. The bark is shaped by slicing it in places and these "gores" were covered with pine pitch. I searched for birch bark canoe construction and found this interesting read on how to build your own. I like the ending instruction: "Carve a paddle. Go fishing." The details in these canoes is amazing.

you can see the "gores" along the side of this canoe

From there we went to the Arctic and saw some beautiful sealskin covered kayaks. The sealskin coverings on many of these kayaks looks very brittle, and probably beyond repair. The frames of the kayaks are beautifully made just as the birch bark canoes. A lot of the kayaks were stacked on racks and difficult to photograph. 

you can see the stacks of kayaks in the background

As I mentioned, the display went from oldest to newest canoes & kayaks. I've shown the displayed canoes in relatively chronological order. The next set are more birch bark canoes and cedar strip canoes of a later period.

do you see the moose decorating the side of this canoe?

Decorations were added to the side of the birch bark canoes by using "winter bark". The bark was moistened and the reddish portion scraped away until only the pattern was left in the reddish colour.

Below is a replica of a canoe (built in 1972) used to transport goods during the fur trade. This canoe is enormous!

When my husband and I are out canoeing, we've seen a lot of paddles that have the chevron stripes on them. We saw these decorations on some of the old paddles in the museum as well. 

There are other non-canoe related items in the museum as well. The next few photos are of a buckskin jacket gifted to a man working for a year as a bookkeeper in Fort Hope, Ontario, in 1908. The native women there made him this clothing, and I was amazed at the details in the needlework.

okay, okay, I know ... too many photos :]

I have a few more, but am tired of writing this post myself. Maybe another day I'll try your patience again.

Thanks for stopping by!

Wendy

This poem was in the bathroom ...