Canoe Model with painted designs

ca. 1900

Hewn from a single cedar log, canoes were the primary mode of transportation across the waters of the Puget Sound for centuries-and in the words of a contemporary Native elder, "the Cadillacs of our ancestors"-conveying families to summer food harvesting camps and to clan gatherings, crews on whale hunts and warriors to battle. The earliest current evidence of model canoes on the Northwest Coast comes from the Ozette archaeological site on the Washington coast south of Cape Flattery.

Alder wood and paint

4 1/2 x 4 3/4 in. (11.43 x 12.07 cm)

L.: 16 in.

Margaret E. Fuller Purchase Fund

91.24

Not currently on view

Resources

Exhibition HistorySeattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, The View From Here: The Pacific Northwest 1800-1930, August 8, 2003 - February 29, 2004

Seattle Art Museum respectfully acknowledges that we are on Indigenous land, the traditional territories of the Coast Salish people. We honor our ongoing connection to these communities past, present, and future.

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