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Writing: American Birchbark Boats

American Birchbark Boats, [§ 1]

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Some time ago I published some of my brother’s thoughts and proposals regarding the promotion of navigation by way of rivers and lakes in this country.1 I have since then with pleasure learnt that the Royal Academy of Sciences has recommended the said proposals to His Royal Majesty to be put into practice and that the authorities are furthermore said to be considering the cleaning up of the rivers and waterways in Finland, so that the means for that have already been allocated, and that His Royal Majesty has issued an order for the implementation of the matter to the Public Finance Board.2 I have also in my spare time had the opportunity to read through some travel accounts, including that of Campanius on New Sweden3, which among other things on page 136 states: Their boats they (the native Americans) make of bark from the cedar tree or birch, of which exceedingly large and thick ones exist there, binding them together so neatly that they can pack them together and carry with them wherever they go; and when they come to any creeks that run in from the riverside and wish to cross them, they place them in the water and then travel in them wherever they please. They also used to make boats for themselves of cedar trees, which they hollowed out with fire, then cutting away the burnt part with stone, bone or mussel shells. My curiosity was thereby aroused to gain closer knowledge about how those boats should be constructed; for that purpose I read more travel accounts concerning the localities where they are used, as in particular Father de Charlevoix in his ‘Histoire de Nouvelle France’, vol. V, p. 283 ff.4, Hennepin in his ‘New Discovery of a vast Country in America’, part I, ch. 3,5 and that of the clerk or book-keeper on the ship ‘California’ in his ‘Voyage to Hudson’s Bay’, p. 39,6 but could not obtain sufficient enlightenment from them until I made enquiries from our Praeses,7 who has travelled there most recently and who has moreover most generously agreed to inform me about their nature. Now, as this matter is both closely related to what I previously published and is not likely to be unpleasing to my countrymen, I have decided to have it issued as an academic specimen.


  1. Refers to the disputation De navigatione per flumina & lacus patriæ, promovenda of Anders Chydenius’ brother Samuel Chydenius, for which Anders Chydenius acted as respondent at Uppsala university in the summer of 1751.
  2. Kammarkollegium
  3. Refers to Thomas Campanius Holm’s Kort beskrifning om provincien Nya Swerige uti America, som nu förtjden af the engelske kallas Pennsylvania. Af lärde och trowärdige mäns skrifter och berättelser ihopaletad och sammanskrefwen, samt med åtskillige figurer utzirad af: Thomas Campanius Holm. Stockholm, 1702. The work is based on notes made by the author’s grandfather, Johannes Campanius, who was a clergyman in New Sweden 1643-1668, and on the manuscript Geographia Americæ eller Indiæ Occidentalis beskriffningh (1653-1656) of the military engineer Per Lindeström.
  4. Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix, Histoire et description générale de la Nouvelle France, avec le journal historique d’un voyage fait par ordre du roi dans l’Amerique Septentrionnale, Paris 1744
  5. Louis Hennepins A new discovery of a vast country in America, extending above four thousand miles between New France and New Mexico. London 1698; published in French the previous year.
  6. Refers to Henry Ellis’ work A voyage to Hudson’s bay by the Dobbs galley and California, in the years 1746 and 1747, for discovering a north west passage. Dublin,1749. Ellis was a scientific observer and cartographer on board the ship California, which sailed on an expedition to Hudson’s Bay 1746-1747. It was a normal part of his work to write down his observations; that may be why Chydenius calls him “bookkeeper”.
  7. Professor Pehr Kalm

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