It was lined with small splints of juniper cedar, and the vessel was further strengthened with ribs of the same wood, of which the two ends were fastened to the gunwales.

Several bars rather than seats were laid across the canoe from gunwale to gunwale, the small roots of the spruce fir afforded the fibre with which the bark was sewn or stitched, and the gum of the pine tree supplied the place of tar and oakum.

Bark, some spare fibre, and gum were always carried in each canoe for repairs, which were constantly necessary (one continually reads in the diaries of the pioneers of "stopping to gum the canoe").

The canoes were propelled with paddles, and occasionally a sail.
[Footnote 13: In the far north-west, on the rivers of the Pacific slope, the natives used spruce-fir bark instead of birch.] The aborigines of Newfoundland--the Beothiks--are said to have known the birch-bark canoe, framework canoe, but to have employed "dug-outs"-- hollowed tree trunks.

The canoes of the Mandans of the upper Missouri basin were like coracles, of circular form, made of a framework of bent willow branches over which was stretched a raw bison-hide with the hair inside.