CANOT DU MAITRE or DOUBLE NORTH CANOE

[aukepalmhof]

The original artwork after which this stamp is designed is from Frances Anne Hopkins painting, Canoe Manned by Voyageurs passing a waterfall in Ontario. The original painting is in the National Archives of Canada in Ottawa.
The photo on the stamp is made by William Notmam and depict Frances Anne Hopkins. The stamp was designed by David Nethercott of Ottawa.

Frances Anne Hopkins (née Beechey) was born in England in 1838. In 1858, she married Edward Hopkins, a Hudson’s Bay Company official – and a widower thirty years her senior. The Hopkins came to Canada one year later and settled at Lachine. Frances Anne accompanied her husband on the western business trips. These exciting and often dangerous wilderness journeys inspired her best paintings. They are exact – almost photographic – renditions of the voyageur’s long-since vanished way of life.
The Hopkins returned to England in 1870. Frances Anne actively continued painting until her death in 1919.

The canoe depict is a CANOT DU MAITRE or also named DOUBLE NORTH CANOE the largest fur traders birchbark canoes that transported supplies and fur on the larger lakes and rivers of the Great Lakes Basin from the 17th to the end of the 19th century.
She were narrow flat bottom, with slight rocker at ends; straight flaring sides; sheer might hog amidships. Stem curvature varied with date and place of construction, but all turned up sharply; inner stem piece either joined to recurved outer stem or was free standing and braced to the outer stem. Ends generally decorated, the bow usually carrying the symbol of the 4-canoe fur brigade.
Bark sewn with spruce roots and caulked with spruce and pine gum; sheathed between ribs and bark; hardwood ribs 6-8cm wide. Crew size ranged from 6-18 depending on the difficulty of the trip, cargo size and numbers of passengers.
Paddlers sat 2 to a thwart; bow and sternmen paddled standing, using extra-long paddles.
Sometimes sailed or tracked from shore.
Portaged by four men.
Average dim. 11 x 1.82 x 0.84m, with as little of 15 cm freeboard. when fully loaded.

Canada 1988 37c sg1313, scott?
Canada 1994 43c sg 1585, Scott?

Source: Aak to Zumbra, a dictionary of the World’s Watercraft
http://data4.collectionscanada.ca/netac ... SECT3=POST