Following the arrival of Europeans on the Northwest Coast, the ancient First Nations arts of canoe design and navigation quickly went into decline, and for decades were nearly lost. In the excerpt below, B.C. canoe historian Sanford Osler traces the re-emergence of indigenous canoe traditions over the past 30 years, including Haida artist Bill Reid’s construction of the magnificent Lootaas in 1986.
Prior to contact with Europeans, Northwest Coast culture was one of the most complex native cultures on the continent, if not the world. Much of this sophistication was due to the resources in the region, particularly the western red cedar and the Pacific salmon. The traditional West Coast dugout canoe, carved from a single cedar tree, was probably the most important aspect of Northwest Coast culture.
These canoes were used for a variety of purposes, including harvesting seals, whales and fish; transporting people and goods; and waging war. They operated on rivers, inland seas and the open ocean. They ranged from short, single-person craft to ones more than 60 feet long that could carry dozens of people. They were essential and integral to the economic, cultural and spiritual life of these communities.
Every coastal First Nations group designed and built dugout canoes based on available resources and suited to their purposes and environment. The biggest canoe makers were likely the Haida nation. They had the greatest need, being island people, and the best trees.
Particularly awe-inspiring are the Haida ocean-going war canoes. Generally ranging from 35 to 65 feet in length, these majestic canoes were used to travel the more than 80 treacherous kilometres separating Haida Gwaii from the mainland, as well as along the coast.
Beautiful craft, particularly when finished with artwork, they also had some advanced design features. They were incredibly buoyant — so much so that they needed ballast for stability if not fully loaded. The long and high pieces at the bow and stern allowed for a smoother ride in big waves.
The vertical cutwater under the prow threw off high waves when going upwind and kept the canoe going straight, rather than twisting, when going downwind with a following sea. Hilary Stewart, in tracing the uses of western red cedar, wrote: “Nowhere else in the world was a dugout canoe developed to such a degree of sophistication; no other people had a dugout that could match the speed, capacity and seaworthiness — or the elegant grace — of the sleek canoes of the Northwest Coast Indian.”
The first Europeans to reach the Northwest Coast did so by sea in the latter part of the 18th century and were impressed with both the quality and quantity of dugout canoes that greeted them. An officer of the Spanish ship Sutil in 1792 reported that the First Nations-built canoes were “so exactly proportioned that they are extremely light and strong and very well shaped. Men and women alike manage these canoes well in the sea.”
Capt. Thomas Barnett recorded that 600 Haida canoes surrounded his trading ship in Haida Gwaii in 1791. Indeed, there were thought to be enough canoes on the coast at that time to hold the entire estimated population of as many as 100,000 people, along with many of their worldly goods.
At first, the canoes flourished after Europeans arrived. The large demand for sea otters was met by the First Nations operating from their dugout canoes. When overharvesting led to the sea otters’ near-extinction, the demand shifted to fur seals, also hunted from canoes.
The tide began to turn in the 19th century. Smallpox and other European-introduced diseases decimated the native population, while the missionaries and government agents sought to destroy native culture and traditions.
The potlatch, a gift-giving festival that depended heavily upon dugout canoes, was banned in 1884. Residential schools, designed to assimilate native children into mainstream culture, were introduced in the 1870s. These changes, along with the decline and eventual closing of fur sealing, led to a sharp reduction in the need for new dugouts.
The making of oceangoing dugout canoes essentially stopped for much of the 20th century. The last great Haida war canoe was a 56-foot vessel, built in 1908, which now rests in the Canadian Museum of History.
Kirk Wipper understood the historical significance of Northwest Coast canoes and wanted one for his fledgling [Canadian] canoe museum. He learned that Victor Adams, a Haida carver living at the once-great canoe-making centre of Masset, on Haida Gwaii, would be willing to build one.
It took Adams three years to rediscover and apply traditional canoe-making techniques. He wrote to Wipper at one point: “We haven’t done this for so long that it’s hard to know whether we’re doing it right.” Launched amid much local interest in 1971, the 26-foot Eagle eventually made its way to Camp Kandalore with James Raffan at the helm. No more canoes were built at Masset that century.
The man who did succeed in resurrecting the art of building large ocean-going canoes on the Northwest Coast was Bill Reid. Born in 1920 to a Haida mother and a father of Scottish-German descent, Reid learned of his native heritage only in his 20s; his mother’s residential schooling had led her to be ashamed of and suppress her background.
A talented artist and communicator, Reid began designing and making First Nations-inspired jewelry and then large cedar totem poles. It was the canoe that really captured his attention.
He believed that West Coast native art starts with that craft: “The Haida canoe is as beautifully designed and decorated an open boat as the world has ever seen.”
Building a big ocean-going canoe for the first time in almost a century was no easy task. Researching the project involved studying the dozens of incomplete canoes in the Haida Gwaii forest, casualties of the smallpox-induced population collapse, as well as the few remaining finished ones.
Reid built two prototypes; the larger, 24-foot canoe is now on display at the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia. The final 50-foot canoe, called Lootaas or “wave eater” in the Haida language, was launched in Skidegate on Haida Gwaii in time for a triumphant entrance at the opening of Vancouver’s Expo ’86.
As spectacular as its role was in Vancouver, Lootaas’s most important trip was its voyage to Haida Gwaii in 1987. During this 19-day trip, Lootaas stopped at many communities that hadn’t seen such a canoe in most people’s memories.
The coastal First Nations relearned receiving protocols, held celebratory feasts and rekindled pride in their canoe heritage. Haida paddler Andy Wilson reminisced about the historic 1987 journey:
“Thanks to Bill [Reid], we … not just the Haida people, but the people up and down the coast, were able to reconnect because they had to learn their songs and their dances to welcome the Haida into their big houses. So it wasn’t just one group of people reconnecting with their past, but it was a whole coast. So it was a pretty spectacular time for us … And Bill was that vital, important connection for us in the present to our ancestors in the past.”
Lootaas’s next big trip was to France in 1989, where it was paddled 900 kilometres up the Seine River and made a dramatic entrance into Paris. Noted French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss had classified the art of the Northwest Coast among the five great artistic traditions of human history.
Reid wanted to show the coastal canoe as part of a living Haida culture in one of the great art centres of the world. After a welcome by Jacques Chirac, then the mayor of Paris, Lootaas was carefully manoeuvred into the Musée de l’Homme to join a special exhibition in honour of Lévi-Strauss.
Lootaas completed the circle with its creator when it transported Bill Reid’s remains to his ancestral birthplace in Haida Gwaii after his death in 1998. This seemed a fitting end for someone who had said that he got “more satisfaction out of the building of [Lootaas] than of anything I’ve ever done.” Indeed, Lootaas was a metaphor for Bill Reid’s recognition and reclamation of what it meant to be Haida.
Excerpted from Canoe Crossings: Understanding the Craft That Helped Shape British Columbia. Copyright Sanford Osler, 2014, Heritage House Publishing
