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Arthur Heming
Canadian Voyageurs, c. 1900-10
92.3 x 37.12 cm
Royal Ontario Museum
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atterned on Ojibway and Algonquin styles,
the eight-metre North Canoe was built of birch, birchbark, white cedar,
and spruce. In fur trade use it would carry about two tons of freight,
two passengers, and six paddlers.
Moving in "brigades" of three or four, these vessels averaged thirty
miles (forty-eight kilometres) each day, including overland portages.
A run to the Pacific or Arctic from Fort William (Thunder Bay) could
take three months - with an equally long haul back to the Great Lakes
the next season.
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n addition to portraying
both Montreal and North Canoes, the artist shows heavier handpowered and
sail-rigged watercraft in regular Hudson's Bay Company use.
She also reveals how fur trade vessels and their cargoes were
portaged around rapids or falls.
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![](/web/20071125220534im_/http://www.civilization.ca/hist/canoe/images/1ph18.gif)
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Frances Anne Hopkins (1838-1919)
The Red River Expedition at Kakabeka Falls, 1877
Oil on canvas, 91.4 x 152.4 cm
National Archives of Canada (C-2775)
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