Yak

Here's an image of a circa 1905 postcard featuring a Penobscot guide confidently standing in his canoe...

Here's a nice photo a graceful Maliseet bark canoe taken from Leaves from Juliana Horatia Ewing's "Canada Home" courtesy of Archive.org. The brief letter written be Ms. Ewing describes a day paddling on the Nashwaak stream in New Brunswick.


Here's the accompanying excerpt...

Last Friday we were asked to Government House for a picnic. . . . We went across the river, and by water up the Nashwaak Cis. (i. e.. Little Nashwaak), and landed at a very pretty spot, where we ate luncheon off such lovely old china I wonder his Excellency had the heart to risk it at a picnic!

The A. D. C. lent Rex his own boat, that Rex might row me there. I told him I must have a good wrap and got a buffalo robe to keep me warm, and sat like a queen in the stern. There were lots of canoes and a few boats. . . Coming back down the Cis it was lovely, half dark, and the canoes gliding past among the shadows. The Cis was very narrow and required careful steering. I got some new water lilies.

A photograph in the graphic collections of the Admiral Digby Museum in Nova Scotia features a paddler about to embark in his canoe. The closed gunnel canvas canoe is a real beauty. Likewise, the paddle has pretty shape with a simple flattened grip.