Boat comparison 

Birch Bark Canoe            Dugout Canoe(bateau)          European and Ships

 The birch bark canoe was made and used by the Canadian first nations of the Eastern Woodlands. With the first nations needing a way of transportation aboard water that was light, tough enough to endure rocks, trees, rapids, and being dragged across the forest floor a canoe being made out of Birch bark was perfect. 

This light weight boat would float right at the top of the water being very important to aboriginal trappers taking the canoes through shallow creeks and rivers. The barks strength insure that if one were to get caught in a rapid or have to cross a beaver damn in would not pierce.    

 The huge dugout canoe was used by first nations along the west coast where soft wood trees such as cedar would grow large enough for the construction. The groups behind the construction of these boats needed a boat big enough to keep afloat with many hunters aboard, The dugout canoe was also many used on open ocean and needed to be heavy enough and structurally stable enough to to glide trough waves and current. 

The extremely large canoe was perfect for having many people row the boat at a fast pace as they would hunt for whale and fish the oceans. With the boats large capacity is could also carry almost the whole tribe at once.    

 The French and Europeans used giant wooden ships and very heavy boats that float very deep in the water. The ships were without a doubt perfect for carrying loads and men, equipment, supplies, and firearms across the water for weeks of even months at a time, but terrible ones in Canadian waters.  

The big heavy ships couldn't come anywhere near the shore even less float through rivers without getting hung up. Equipment had to be slowly brought to land using the heavy boats carried on board the ships. These boats could only carry a little amount of supplies at a time and being a deep floating heavy boat they often couldn't be floated all the way to land meaning men had to bring it the rest of the way on foot through water. For these same reasons the boats were also useless in shallow rivers and creeks. 

Which was better and why?

During the 17th century the birch bark canoe was key to Canada. Although Canada does include some ocean waters, creeks, rivers, lakes, rapids, and shallow waters are what make up most of Canada. In these kind of waters you needed a light and sturdy boat that could be use by one or two people. The dugout canoe was to big and heavy and would get hung up in most creeks and some rivers. The British and French boats where without a doubt useless in the Canadian waters. The canoe might of been risky in heavy waters such as the ocean but it was never intended for that kind of use. The fur trade depended on these boats, first nation would use them for trapping in narrow and shallow waters. It was such a good design settlers used it when they came to Canada for fishing, transportation, and carrying supplies. The boat could hit rocks, trees, and go through rapids without piercing. Most importantly while the ships would take years to to build, dugouts would take months, the birch bark canoe would take days to construct. This simple and effective design was so well done to this day people still build them and the modern canoe is based off of these first nation boats.       

 

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