types of vessel, the "snow," a three-master with a try-sail abaft the
mainmast, the schooner, the batteau and the birch canoe, and, in closely
land-locked waters, the horse ferry. The Durham boat, a batteau on a
larger scale with false keel, had yet to be introduced. The bark canoe,
which for certain purposes has never been improved upon--not even
excepting the cedar-built canoe--varied in size from nine to thirty
feet, or, in the language of the voyageur, from one and a half to five
fathoms. These canoes had capacity for a crew of from one to thirty men,
or a cargo of seventy "pieces" of ninety pounds each, equal to three
tons, exclusive of provisions for nine paddlers. In these arks of
safety, manned by Indians or _metis_ (half-breeds), the fur-trader would
leave Lachine, on the St. Lawrence, ascend the Ottawa, descend the
French, cross Lake Huron--the Lake Orleans of Nicollet and Hennepin--and
find no rest from drench or riffle until he reached Mackinaw, or more
distant Fort Dearborn (now Chicago), on the Skunk River, at the head of
Lake Michigan, 1,450 miles by water from Quebec.

The batteaux--great, open, flat-bottomed boats, forty feet long and
eight feet beam, pointed at stem and stern--were not unlike the York
boats used in Lord Wolseley's Red River expedition in 1870, and would
carry five tons of cargo. Rigged with a movable mast stepped almost
amid-ships, and a big lug-sail, these greyhounds of the lakes were, for
passengers in our hero's time, often the only means of water transport
between Quebec and Little York. As important factors in the transport of
soldiers and munitions in the war of 1812, they deserve description.

While sailing well when before the wind, they yet, with their defective
rig and keelless bottoms, carrying no weather helm, made little headway
with the wind close abeam. On one occasion Isaac Brock left Lachine with
a brigade of five batteaux, so that all hands could unite in making the