Maliseet Want Canoe to Stay Home
2 Apr
Members of the Maliseet First Nation in New Brunswick, Canada want a birchbark canoe thought to be the oldest in existence returned to its original home.
The 180-year-old “Grandfather Canoe,” a freighter canoe built by Maliseet craftsmen in the early 19th Century, is currently on display at the New Brunswick Museum in Saint John — on loan from the National University of Ireland, Galway where it has resided, largely forgotten, for most of its life.
Chief Candice Paul of the St Mary’s First Nation community has asked the University to return the canoe to her people, saying the vessel is an “iconic” and “powerful symbol” of her people’s way of life. Repatriation of the canoe has wide support among Canadian First Nation and New Brunswick officials.
At European contact, the Maliseet people inhabited an area along the Saint John River that includes parts of present-day western New Brunswick, northern Maine, and Quebec.
The canoe was obtained in 1824 by British Lieutenant-Governor Sir Howard Douglas. It was shipped across the Atlantic in 1852 by Lieutenant Stepney St. George of the British imperial forces in Canada, who had come to own the boat. He donated the boat to the University.
After a century and a half of neglect, the canoe ended up back in Canada when University officials sent it to the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Ottawa for restoration. It has been on display in New Brunswick since June 2008, but is scheduled to return to Ireland this June.
The matter of where the canoe will reside in the future was front page news last Sunday in the Irish Times, HERE. University officials are open to discussing a Canadian future for the boat.
Photos of the canoe can be found, HERE, along with a 2008 CBC story on the matter.
There’s a Toronto Globe and Mail story on the matter, HERE.
