March 10th, 2018 : Big Mofo Canoe

[xoxoxoBruce]

Generally we think of canoes as small water craft for one, two, or three people to navigate usually pretty calm waters.
Yeah I know, when the wind comes up half way across the lake it can get pretty scary. But that’s the point, it would be much
less scary in a boat.
The Algonquins built Birch bark canoes up to 44 ft(12meters) long with a crew of 10 or 12 that would carry 3 tons(2722 Kg).
Then there’s the fur traders for Hudson Bay Co who had big tough canoes to haul out tons of beaver pelts.
I thought the largest would be the ocean going Polynesian/Hawaiian Ocean Going canoes but I guess it could be argued
they are actually boats.
Wrong, paddle breath. The African Embarkation Canoes take the cake at 40 feet long, 21 crew, and 200 “passengers”.



I guess those Embarkation Canoes carrying slaves out to the trader's ships got a pretty good workout. Of course some slaves
were loaded in a few ports but the canoes got a share of the 12,116,211 recorded slaves transported of which 10,450,004 survived.



Plus the ships flagged as USA but of course there was no USA from 1500 to 1776, but the might be counting privateers
and pirates home-ported in what would become the USA.



This just the trans-Atlantic trade, there was also a trade between the Americas and the Caribbean islands.

No link numerous sources