AIC's 53rd Annual Meeting

The Linklater/Warren canoe is considered to be the last indigenous object related to Isle Royale National Park. The canoe is an interesting style; mixing traditional Ojibwe birchbark canoe techniques with the early 20th century trend of canvas covered canoes. The canoe was built by John and Tchi-Ki-Wis Linklater, “the last Native Americans to live and work on Isle Royale” before the park designation. John Linklater worked as a guide for Frank Warren, a mining engineer from Minneapolis who was a champion of establishing Isle Royale as a national park in the 1920s. It is unclear if the canoe was made on the island for the specific use of guiding the Warrens, or if it was brought from Minnesota, and later purchased by Frank Warren. It is a “long-nose Ojibwe” canoe, which was common for border lakes Anishinaabeg. However, instead of traditional pitched edges to the bark, the entire canoe was wrapped in a green canvas that was nailed under the gunnels. Wood and canvas canoes were common in the 1910s and 1920s, suggesting an active aesthetic choice in the material, possibly made by the Warrens.

The canoe was given to the National Park Service in 1971. It was described when cataloged in 1983 in similar condition to that prior to treatment, with heavily soiled peeling canvas, the lack of two black ash thwarts, and damage to lashings and birchbark structure.   

To ensure work was undertaken with the respect for the object’s indigenous history, we conducted an outreach session with Ojibwe representatives from Grand Portage. 

We treated the canoe to reduce the embedded soiling throughout the canoe, and to stabilize loose components, preventing future loss. Furthermore, discussions with current canoe builders were undertaken in order to ensure the further stabilization of the canoe by creating replacement thwarts. Following input from park staff to determine interpretation needs, we performed additional treatment to compensate for losses and create a visually cohesive canoe, retaining signs of use as part of the park’s overall history. 

The techniques used to compensate for losses in the canvas were pulled from those used by paintings conservators: spun bond polyester and BEVA 371 linings, and  book and paper conservators: textured Japanese paper fills, in which a silicone mold is made of a similarly textured surface and acrylic paint is used to create a cast of texture, which can then be easily applied to Japanese paper, or used without as a thin film which can be heat set into place. 

The combination of these techniques allowed for a cohesive appearance for the canoe, whilst still retaining reversibility as a core tenement, and provides an additional tool in the object conservator’s toolbox for mimicking original surfaces.