History of Canoeing

This hall is dedicated to the past that has helped to shape the canoe into what it is today. 7000 years ago the First Nations people had canoes. They ranged all over the Continent. When the European explorers arrived in Canada they set out to discover the "New World". The natives took those explorers in thier birchbark canoes to show them what was there. They took the explorers over the traditional routes that had been traveled by countless generations. The Europeans adopted the canoe. In the hands of the Voyageurs the canoe made incredible voyages, half way across the continent with 2 to 3 tons of trade goods and then back with tons of furs. They did this each year like clockwork.

The map makers followed.....in canoes. The geologists followed.....in canoes. The first settlers came......in canoes. Settlements sprang up along the canoe routes. Then the railroad followed the canoe routes. Today the tourists follow the same canoe routes.

7000 years after the First Nations peoples started making canoes there is still no better way to see most of Canada than in a Canoe. Interestingly enough, if you look at the latest hi-tech canoe designs you may get a shock, these are the designs that have been made for thousands of years out of birchbark. It puts it into perspective when you see the latest asymetrical radically rockered whitewater playboat as a 120 year old birchbark canoe.

To look to the future we must see to the past.



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