The Kootenay and some of their Salish neighbours in the southern interior of British Columbia built a very distinctive bark boat, often referred to as the "sturgeon-nose" or "ram-shaped" canoe. These names derive from the extension of the keel line into end "rams", a feature that is thought by some to keep out water in rapid rivers and big lakes. The Kootenay canoe was framed with narrow, well-spaced battens, some of which were lashed to the ribs.
|Kootenay "sturgeon-nose" canoe.
From the western margins of the range of the paper birch,
this canoe is covered with a combination of pine and birch bark
Main builders: Mr. and Mrs. Frank Basil
Creston, British Columbia, 1959
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