The Nine Mile Portage is well known to some Barrie residents.
There was a historical plaque marking its start at the foot of Owen Street in downtown Barrie. The sign, originally erected in 1957, was removed when Fred Grant Square (as locals called it) was remade into Meridian Place in 2018. In storage ever since, many hope it will be reinstalled soon.
Even though the sign has been removed, I am reminded of this trade route as I pass Portage View Public School, just off Letitia Street, near my home. It has probably been in use by Indigenous peoples for centuries.
The Nine Mile Portage was used to supply a British military depot on Willow Creek, and Penetanguishene, for four decades. Originally called the Nottawasaga Portage, it was a minor trade route for furs from the Lake Huron region. The French River route — Ottawa River to Georgian Bay via Lake Nippising — was far more important.
Seventeenth-century explorer Étienne Brûlé used the Nottawasaga trail, as did Alexander Henry, an 18th-century fur trader linked to the North West Company. It was abandoned in the 1850s when railways arrived, providing a faster route, capable of carrying far more cargo.
My copy of Beautiful Barrie: The City and Its People: An Illustrated History of Barrie, Ontario gives a brief ‘pre-colonial’ history of our town. It began as a group of semi-permanent hunting and fishing camps with some agriculture.
The portage was used by the Wendat, the Algonquin, fur traders and, finally, the British military.
Unfortunately, Europeans brought diseases such as smallpox and influenza to which the local people were so vulnerable, their population literally crashed.
Europeans brought over a tradition of heavy, awkward, flat-bottomed rowing boats capable of carrying two to three tonnes of cargo. As early as 1530, French explorer Jacques Cartier and, seven decades later, Samuel de Champlain complained their boats were virtually useless beyond the main rivers and lakes.
European rivers had tow paths for horses or mules to pull such boats upstream. Here, lacking tow paths, the boats had to be laboriously rowed, or poled (in shallow water), against the current.
Sometimes, these boats were built at the headwaters, near their cargo. Then they were rowed downstream and sold at their destination to be dismantled for construction material.
These flat-bottomed boats could only be moved between lakes, or from one river valley to another, by clearing and grooming (removing rocks and tree stumps) a route. These had to be wide enough to roll the boat along on logs. (Imagine rolling a heavy boat up Anne Street!)
It didn’t take long to realize the Indigenous canoe was far better suited to our geography than any European boat. Rivers, large and small, plus lakes, were "everywhere." The lightweight birch-bark canoe was beautifully designed for portaging between these.
Bark canoes were built and used by almost every First Nations person in the Maritimes, Ontario, Quebec and into the Northwest Territories.
A typical canoe was four to five metres (13 to 18 feet) long. It could carry three to four adults and a little baggage, or two adults, plus 200 kilograms of cargo. Such a canoe would weigh just 30 to 40 kilograms (65 to 90 pounds). Even the heaviest of these canoes could be carried by one man over a narrow portage trail.
Fur traders carried serious cargo both ways. Up country, they brought trade goods: iron tools, cooking pots, woollen cloth (blankets), mirrors, colourful beads, etc. They also carried provisions because they often wintered near the headwaters for trading, only returning to Montreal (old headquarters of the Hudson’s Bay Company) in spring, laden with furs. The fur traders needed a much larger canoe.
The canot du nord (north canoe) was about seven-and-a-half metres (25 feet) long, crewed by four, and capable of carrying one-and-a-half tonnes of cargo. On portage, it could be carried by two men. The largest canot du maître (Montreal canoe) measured up to 12 metres (40 feet) and could hold three tonnes of cargo. There was also an intermediate size, canot bâtard or bastard canoe, at nine metres (30 feet) long.
The Hudson’s Bay Company is one of the world’s oldest continuously operating companies. Its logo features beavers, moose and fox, some of the creatures whose fur they sought. Frances Anne Hopkins, wife of a Hudson’s Bay official, travelled with her husband as he toured the company’s trading post "empire."
Around 1870, she produced some very beautiful and accurate paintings of these canoes in action.
The birch-bark canoe evolved over hundreds of years. There were no canoe-building ‘specialists’ in the First Nations. Every settlement had a few who knew how to build one, and others joined in to help. The Canoe describes, with 28 photographs, the process of building a canoe in the Algonquin style. The process is also described in Native Art in Canada, with small photographs.
All the materials required are readily available from the forest: a cedar tree trunk, bark from a white birch tree, spruce roots, spruce resin, and simple tools. Spruce resin or gum exudes from the trees. This is collected, boiled, strained, and softened by adding animal fat. This material, blackened with charcoal, seals the finished canoe’s seams. The process of building a canoe takes about two weeks.
Bark canoes were built by various First Nations from the Maritimes to the Northwest Territories. They all had slightly different designs, some for artistic purposes, others to cope with water conditions such as open water versus rivers. Seashore people like the Mi’kmaq had taller gunwales and broader beams with "tumblehome" sides. In the Far North, where birch trees were too small to yield useful bark, people used moose hide instead.
The Inuit built their signature low-slung kayaks. They also built far larger boats, umiaks, to transport goods and people. Both were made of animal skins stretched over a wooden framework.
Along Canada’s West Coast, canoes were carved from hollowed-out logs. These were too heavy to move over land but well suited for coastal travel.
Long ago, dugouts were used in Europe, and they still are used in Asia and Africa on a small scale. However, the lightweight bark canoe is exclusive to eastern and central North America — largely Canada.
Over the past 150 years, canoes were modernized. Initially, they were made of painted canvas stretched over wooden ribs. More recently, composites have been the materials of choice — originally, resin and fibreglass, and then the far lighter resin and Kevlar. Whitewater canoes are made of flexible materials like Royalex and, more recently, T-Formex, which easily survive contact with rocks.
The Barrie Canoe and Kayak Club owns two replica north canoes and one Montreal canoe, the latter seating up to 20 paddlers. I have often wondered why we don’t race these elegant traditional Canadian craft instead of dragon boats.
Peter Bursztyn is a self-proclaimed “recovering scientist” who has a passion for all things based in science and the environment. The now-retired former university academic has taught and carried out research at universities in Africa, Britain and Canada. As a member of BarrieToday’s community advisory board, he also writes a semi-regular column.
