Tips Sail

Passamaquoddy Porpoise Hunter Pic

Here's a nice pic of some Passamaquoddy canoes and a paddle from Gleason's Pictorial Drawing Room Companion dated to 1851.


Part of the caption reads:

The engraving illustrates a branch of Indian enterprise in Passamaquoddy Bay, on the coast of Maine. Summer travellers often see the Indians, in their frail canoes, in pursuit of the porpoises, which they shoot, and then most dexterously by the use  of their peculiarly barbed spear, take into the canoe and convey ashore, where they cut them up and try out the oil. Most of the oil in common use at Eastport and places along that coast, is from the porpoise, and nets the Indian about eighty or ninety cents per gallon. The picturesque appearance of the Indian fisherman in his light canoe, is very striking...

Similar pics featuring bark canoes and porpoise hunting can be see in this earlier post and another one here.