Country of the Kutenai

Description

The Kutenai occupied portions of southeastern British Columbia, northern Idaho, and northwestern Montana. In this region of blue, mountain-girt lakes and majestic rivers they very naturally made use of canoes. The commoner form was the pine-bark craft still to be observed among the Kalispel (see plates 239, 240), but occasionally they made canoes of the form here illustrated, by stretching fresh elk-hides over a framework of fir strips or tough saplings. The one seen in the picture is a canvas-covered specimen found on the shore of Flathead lake in 1909.