Transportation

Southeast Natives not only depended on the ocean for much of their food, but also for travelling. Although coastal waterways could be dangerous, they provided the best transportation routes along the rugged and heavily forested mountainous coast. This remains true of the Southeast even today, where there are few roads and boats are the primary form of transportation between communities. 

The boats of the Tlingit and Haida were wooden dugout canoes. The canoes varied in size and purpose. The larger canoes were for long-distance travel and war, and the smaller ones were for work and hunting. The largest canoes were 70 feet long and could carry up to 40 people and two tons of freight.

A large travel or war canoe took about a year to build. Canoes were made from a single carefully picked cedar. Felled in the fall, the tree would be burned and carved out.  Typically, the canoes were long, narrow, and high-pointed in the front and back.

The Haidas were considered the preeminent canoe builders of the Pacific Northwest Coast. The giant-sized western red cedars of the Haida homeland on the Queen Charlotte Islands were the finest trees in the world for making dug-out canoes.  Generations of experience made them unsurpassed canoe designers, builders, and paddlers.  For these reasons, the Haida were the chief supplier of canoes for many of the coastal peoples.

Clan emblems were carved and painted on the canoes. The design and painting were done by a woman from a clan different from the canoe's owner. A clan's canoes were one of its most highly prized possessions.