Post by tgneal on May 27, 2007 19:14:15 GMT -5
An old Maliseet canoe was found in a museum in Ireland. The canoe is thought to be over 180 years old.
Many of us have probably paddled the same waters this canoe plied almost 200 years ago.
www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=76636c38-429c-4a22-8288-8ef0951f97b5
www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070522.wcanoe0522/BNStory/National/home
www.macleans.ca/canada/wire/article.jsp?content=n052285A
www.canada.com/globaltv/national/video/index.html
Many of us have probably paddled the same waters this canoe plied almost 200 years ago.
Colonial canoe comes home for a refit
Historic vessel discovered collecting dust at an Irish university
Randy Boswell
OTTAWA -- Decade after decade, for almost 200 years, a huge birchbark canoe from Canada had gathered dust and nesting pigeons where it was hanging forgotten near the rafters of a musty Irish museum.
Nearly trashed as junk in 2001, a last-minute decision to probe its past revealed the relic's remarkable history and prompted a binational project to restore what turned out to the oldest canoe of its kind in the world -- an exquisite, lost-and-found treasure of Canadiana.
"We discovered it was like a Rembrandt in the attic," says National University of Ireland professor Kathryn Moore, who has brought the early 19th-century Maliseet masterpiece back to Canada to save it from destruction and to conduct further research for a book about its life.
"It went from being a nuisance we wanted to get rid of to being something really precious, a symbol of national importance."
The Canadian Museum of Civilization will announce today its part in refurbishing the six-metre-long canoe, a vintage cargo craft used to carry furs and military supplies in colonial New Brunswick and now transporting a team of thrilled scholars and conservators across time to key episodes in Canadian and Irish history.
The Maliseet -- the "people of the beautiful river" in their language -- traditionally inhabited lands all along the Saint John River and are renowned to this day as expert canoe builders.
The canoe was apparently purchased from them near Fredericton in the 1820s by a British army unit assigned to strengthen alliances with the area's first nations, reinforce a network of military outposts, and secure resources for Britain.
Moore -- a geologist-turned-historical sleuth in search of the canoe's story -- found that it was acquired by Stepney St. George, an Irish officer in the British army who served in Canada in 1825. At the end of his tour of duty, he had the canoe shipped across the Atlantic to Headford Castle, his family's estate near the west Ireland city of Galway.
The St. Georges, who transformed their mansion into a relief hospital and were deemed heroes for their kind treatment of the sick, were financially ruined by their generosity. The birchbark curiosity ended up in the early 1850s at the newly opened university in Galway.
There -- suspended on a stone wall in a sheltered quadrangle to which birds routinely gained access -- the canoe remained, mostly ignored for more than a century and a half.
Just as the grand scope of the Galway canoe's history was coming to light a few years ago, the need to preserve it became more urgent. Moore says the dampness of the university museum may have, ironically, helped prevent the canoe from becoming too brittle. But layers of bark had begun to fall away and, without emergency repair work, the canoe faced rapid disintegration.
Moore contacted the Canadian Museum of Civilization, a global centre of excellence for the preservation of historic artifacts. Canadian experts rallied to help Moore saved what they call a "precious artifact," and it was arranged to have the canoe shipped to the museum.
The museum describes the craft as "an excellent example of traditional construction, with finely harvested and shaped birchbark over white cedar ribs, attached with roots of black spruce and bear grease."
Throughout the summer and fall, visitors to the museum will be able to watch conservators fixing the artifact before its return to Ireland.
Historic vessel discovered collecting dust at an Irish university
Randy Boswell
OTTAWA -- Decade after decade, for almost 200 years, a huge birchbark canoe from Canada had gathered dust and nesting pigeons where it was hanging forgotten near the rafters of a musty Irish museum.
Nearly trashed as junk in 2001, a last-minute decision to probe its past revealed the relic's remarkable history and prompted a binational project to restore what turned out to the oldest canoe of its kind in the world -- an exquisite, lost-and-found treasure of Canadiana.
"We discovered it was like a Rembrandt in the attic," says National University of Ireland professor Kathryn Moore, who has brought the early 19th-century Maliseet masterpiece back to Canada to save it from destruction and to conduct further research for a book about its life.
"It went from being a nuisance we wanted to get rid of to being something really precious, a symbol of national importance."
The Canadian Museum of Civilization will announce today its part in refurbishing the six-metre-long canoe, a vintage cargo craft used to carry furs and military supplies in colonial New Brunswick and now transporting a team of thrilled scholars and conservators across time to key episodes in Canadian and Irish history.
The Maliseet -- the "people of the beautiful river" in their language -- traditionally inhabited lands all along the Saint John River and are renowned to this day as expert canoe builders.
The canoe was apparently purchased from them near Fredericton in the 1820s by a British army unit assigned to strengthen alliances with the area's first nations, reinforce a network of military outposts, and secure resources for Britain.
Moore -- a geologist-turned-historical sleuth in search of the canoe's story -- found that it was acquired by Stepney St. George, an Irish officer in the British army who served in Canada in 1825. At the end of his tour of duty, he had the canoe shipped across the Atlantic to Headford Castle, his family's estate near the west Ireland city of Galway.
The St. Georges, who transformed their mansion into a relief hospital and were deemed heroes for their kind treatment of the sick, were financially ruined by their generosity. The birchbark curiosity ended up in the early 1850s at the newly opened university in Galway.
There -- suspended on a stone wall in a sheltered quadrangle to which birds routinely gained access -- the canoe remained, mostly ignored for more than a century and a half.
Just as the grand scope of the Galway canoe's history was coming to light a few years ago, the need to preserve it became more urgent. Moore says the dampness of the university museum may have, ironically, helped prevent the canoe from becoming too brittle. But layers of bark had begun to fall away and, without emergency repair work, the canoe faced rapid disintegration.
Moore contacted the Canadian Museum of Civilization, a global centre of excellence for the preservation of historic artifacts. Canadian experts rallied to help Moore saved what they call a "precious artifact," and it was arranged to have the canoe shipped to the museum.
The museum describes the craft as "an excellent example of traditional construction, with finely harvested and shaped birchbark over white cedar ribs, attached with roots of black spruce and bear grease."
Throughout the summer and fall, visitors to the museum will be able to watch conservators fixing the artifact before its return to Ireland.
www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=76636c38-429c-4a22-8288-8ef0951f97b5
www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070522.wcanoe0522/BNStory/National/home
www.macleans.ca/canada/wire/article.jsp?content=n052285A
www.canada.com/globaltv/national/video/index.html
