Birch Bark Canoe

Louis Gill, Abenaki (Abnaki) / Canadian, 1856 - 1923
Abenaki
Wabanaki
First Nation
Northeast Woodlands
Woodlands
Dr. Gordon M. Day

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early 20th century

Birch bark and wood

Overall: 168 1/2 × 32 5/16 × 12 5/8 in. (428 × 82 × 32 cm)

Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Gift of Sinclair Weeks

162.27.14802

Geography

Place Made: Odanak ( Abenaki First Nations Reserve), Canada, North America

Period

20th century

Object Name

Transportation: Water

Research Area

Native American

Native American: Subarctic

Not on view

Label

The ocean and inland waterways of the Northeast make up an intricate highway system where travel by boat is an efficient way to journey long distances. The birch bark canoe is both an advanced work of technology—durable and watertight—and its own form of artistry. The bark of this canoe, made by Louis Gill of the Abenaki First Nations reserve Odanak, would have been carefully soaked, shaped, sewn, and sealed with a mixture of tree resin, charcoal and deer tallow (fat). The knowledge required to construct such a work and subsequently navigate travel routes blurs the division of water from land.

From the 2022 exhibition This Land: American Engagement with the Natural World,  curated by Jami C. Powell, Curator of Indigenous Art; Barbara J. MacAdam, former Jonathan L. Cohen Curator of American Art; Thomas H. Price, former Curatorial Assistant; Morgan E. Freeman, former DAMLI Native American Art Fellow; and Michael Hartman, Jonathan Little Cohen Associate Curator of American Art

Course History

ANTH 7.05, Animals and Humans, Laura Ogden, Winter 2022

GEOG 31.01, Postcolonial Geographies, Erin Collins, Winter 2022

ANTH 50.05, Environmental Archaeology, Madeleine McLeester, Winter 2022

ANTH 50.05, Environmental Archaeology, Madeleine McLeester, Winter 2022

ARTH 5.01, Introduction to Contemporary Art, Mary Coffey and Chad Elias, Winter 2022

SART 16, Sculpture I, Matt Seigle, Spring 2022

ANTH 3.01, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Chelsey Kivland, Summer 2022

ANTH 3.01, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Chelsey Kivland, Summer 2022

SPAN 65.15, Wonderstruck: Archives and the Production of Knowledge in an Unequal World, Silvia Spitta and Barbara Goebel, Summer 2022

Exhibition History

This Land: American Engagement with the Natural World, Luise and Morton Kaish Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 5–July 22, 2022.

Publication History

John R. Stomberg, The Hood Now: Art and Inquiry at Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 2019, p. 135, ill. plate no. 66.

Provenance

Made by Louis Gill, St. Francis for the Batchelder Club, Shawinigan, P.Q,; sold to Sinclair Weeks, Lancaster, New Hampshire; given to present collecction, 1962.

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