Historic Photo: Canoe Poling Upstream

From this expired Ebay ad - a vintage image of canoe poling. He seems so effortless holding the position above the small rapid. Unfortunately no details about the photo's origins.

Unknown Canoe Poler

Celebrity Canoe Paddles: Charlie Chaplin

Along the lines of some earlier posts featuring Hollywood canoeing celebrities like Marilyn Monroe, Maureen O'Sullivan, and Vera Ellen  is this vintage pic of Charlie Chaplin paddling with style...

Source: Caris Grey

via http://discoveringchaplin.blogspot.ca/2012/10/canoeing-in-studio-swimming-pool.html

Boys Life (1953): Making a Leather Tumpline & Wanigan

Here's a great little page from Boys Life, July 1953 for anyone wanting to make some traditional canoe gear. The double article features plans for a wanigan and a quick photo series on making a leather tumpline. Click the link or the image for a larger view...

Source Link: Boys Life, July 1953

Another 1880 Hazen Maliseet Paddle Images

Here's another beautiful Maliseet paddle with some etchings of circular scrolls on the blade. Seems unique to me since most of the stylized scroll motifs I've come across point outward rather than inward into confined circular medallions. It dates to 1880 and is one of the paddles commissioned by Francis Brinley Hazen (1852-1888) from St. Mary's Reserve in Fredericton - the heart of Maliseet territory. 

 

c. 1880

New Brunswick Museum 

From the looks of the light coloured blade and grip and darkened shaft, along with a subtle chip along the blade edge (left side, half way up), this might in fact be the opposite side of a previously featured paddle in the collection of the New Brunswick Museum (1959.86B).

c. 1880

Maple with carved decoration

169.0 x 13.6 cm

New Brunswick Museum, (1959.86B)

This image from the New Brunswick Museum reveals the same chip on the blade (right side). Hard to make out but this side of the grip features a clear image of salmon. Beneath some vine etchings at the throat look to be a pictorial vignette. It might in fact be the scene described by Historian Ruth Phillips in this earlier post here.