German Dugouts Built by Afrika Korps in Canada

During the Second World War, some soldiers of Germany's Afrika Korps captured by the Allies were held at the Whitewater Prisoner of War Camp on Whitewater Lake in Manitoba. According to a recent post by marine archaeologist Timothy Dodson on the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association forum:

while interned at the camp the PoWs built several Dugout canoes. They would use them to paddle around Whitewater Lake. The canoes ranged in both size (1 & 2 men) and propulsion method ( Paddle and Sail).

A team of achaeologists is investigating the site, and they've recovered at least two of the canoes which, as shown above, seem to have been quite nicely made. More photos here.

It seems odd that prisoners of war were allowed both the tools to construct canoes, and the freedom to use them. It would be interesting to know more about the security considerations under which this was possible.

More Bark Canoe Resources

Rob Stevens has posted a new list of bark canoe resources on the website of the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association. It includes lists of canoe builders, books, videos/other media, and relevant organizations and museums, and it seems pretty comprehensive. Rob told me earlier today that a couple of the links are broken and he's working to fix them, so if you follow a link in the next hour or so and it doesn't work, try again in a few days.

The canoe shown here was built at Penobscot Marine Museum last summer by a team of apprentices working Steve Cayard, one of the finest practioners of the art. It's for sale by the museum, proceeds going to repeat the program and help perpetuate this rare skill among Native American people.

A Chinese Mud-Skipper

This unusual little craft -- and I emphasize the "little" -- may be among the oldest plank-built boats still in recent use. According to G.R.G. Worcester in The Junks & Sampans of the Yangtze (1971), a Chinese history written in 90 B.C. attributes its invention to the Emperor Yü, (2205 B.C.). So it's clearly more than 2,100 years old, and possibly more than 4,200 years old if the ancient text is to be believed.


ni-mo-ch'uan from The Junks & Sampans of the Yangtze, G.R.G. Worcester. Click to enlarge.

 The boat is known as the ni-mo-ch'uan, literally "mud-touching boat." It is used on mud flats when they are exposed at low water to collect a highly prized edible snail.

The ni-mo-ch'uan is a tiny form of sampan, being built of three 1/2-inch planks and subdivided by bulkheads. The one shown is 6' LOA and a mere 9-1/2" beam, with sides only 3-1/2" high. At just 1-1/3 cubic feet, this may be the smallest hull, by volume, of any known boat.

The transom features a semicircular cutout that is key to the method of propulsion. The shellfisherman kneels in the stern, with one knee on the bottom board and his shin resting in the cutout. The other leg he extends over the side of the boat, and uses it to propel the boat by pushing with his foot against the mud. He supports his upper body by holding onto the crossbar, which is raised about 18" above the boat's bottom. Worcester days that "progress is achieved quite rapidly" over the mud in this manner. Captured snails are kept in a basket in the bow.

The hull is rockered at the bow, to assist the boat in moving over the mud, and flat astern, to maximize buoyancy beneath the operator. Worcester notes the limber beneath the transom notch, to drain water, but it's unclear how this would not permit more water to enter than it allows to drain out. Perhaps it was stopped with a wood plug or a twist of grass and mud when the boat was afloat.

When observed by Worcester, the boat was "indigenous to the Shanghai area," and similar craft were "used in most of the shallow lakes and in the Tungting Lake, being diverted from their ordinary purpose and used for duck shooting."

Worcester relates a tale in which this most diminutive of boats was used successfully as a ship of war during the Ch'ing dynasty (which lasted from 1644 to 1911; I wish he'd been a little more specific):

"It is recorded that a town on Hangchow Bay was once attacked by pirates whose boats had grounded on the mud flats by the falling tide. A certain enterprising and warlike villager called together all the owners of the mud-touching boats and at night proceeded out to the stranded pirates, who, being taken completely by surprise, were all either killed or captured."