Tumpline
[ Canoes ]
The Oldest Canoe in the World
ALMOST TOSSED AS JUNK
I
thought my hunt for the world’s oldest birchbark canoe would be a simple Google
search. It wasn’t. According to Jeremy Ward, curator of the Canadian Canoe Museum, “Te materials and method of bark canoes’ con- struction makes them particularly vulnerable to neglect over time and often hard to date without proper records.” However, several Canadian news sources
state that the oldest birchbark canoe in North America could very well be the grandfather canoe—a bark canoe recently returned to Canada from Ireland. Te grandfather canoe was shipped to Ire-
land around 1825 by a British Army officer, Captain Stepney St. George, after he com- pleted a posting to New Brunswick. How he acquired the boat is debatable; perhaps pur- chased, perhaps stolen—it nonetheless made its way to his estate in Galway. After St. George’s death in 1847, the canoe
was donated to the National University of Ireland in Galway where it was lucky enough to be stored in a dank corner of a campus building, slowing its deterioration. It was almost thrown out as junk in 2001 before a professor at the university recognized its sig- nificance. Returned to Canada in 2007, the grandfa-
ther was restored at the Canadian Museum of Civilization and the National University of Ireland has officially returned ownership of the canoe to the original builders, New Brunswick’s Maliseet Nation. It’s currently in the care of the Beaverbrook Art Gallery in Fredericton, New Brunswick, where it will go back on display this summer. According to Ward, the Canadian Canoe
Museum has just been made aware that there is a possible contender for the title of the world’s oldest birchbark canoe. Te new candidate? A recently rediscov-
ered canoe that has been in the family of a senior British Army officer who served dur- ing the American Revolutionary War. Tis could date the canoe from the 1780s. “We learn of ancient canoes discovered in private or public collections from time to time,” says Ward. “Tere is still much surveying work yet to be done.” —Doug Scott
www.canoerootsmag.com
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B e a c h b u r g , ON
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See our web site for take-out, camping,
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PHOTO: KIM BROOKS
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