The principal craft which have been used on the Missouri and its tributaries are the canoe, mackinaw, bullboat, keelboat, and steamboat. The yawl, a very important boat, was not much used for independent navigation, but rather as an appurtenance to the steamboats.
The _canoe_ was the simplest and most generally used of all the river craft. It was the wooden canoe, or “dugout,” and not the bark canoe which was so much used where the proper material could be found. The Missouri River canoe was generally made from the logs of the cottonwood, though frequently from the walnut, and occasionally from cedar. The cottonwood in the river bottoms attained immense size, ample for the largest canoes, for these boats rarely exceeded thirty feet in length and three and one-half in width. The ordinary length was between fifteen and twenty feet. A suitable tree having been found, it was felled and a proper length of the trunk was cut out. The exterior was straightened with the broad-ax, and reduced to a round log shorn of all roughness and irregularity. The top was then hewn off, so as to leave about two-thirds of the log. The ends were given a regular canoe model, and were sometimes turned up on bow and stern with extra pieces for purpose of ornament. The log was then carefully scooped out from the flat surface so as to leave a thin shell about two inches thick at the bottom and one at the rim. To support the sides and give strength to the craft the timber was left in place at points from four to six feet apart, making solid partitions or bulkheads. A good-sized canoe was easily built by four men in as many days. They had tools especially adapted to the work, the most important being the _tille ronde_, or the round adz.
These log canoes made excellent craft, strong, light, and easily managed. A full crew generally consisted of three men, two to propel and one to steer. The paddle (French _aviron_) was always used. A mast was occasionally placed in the center and rigged with a square sail, but this could be used only with an aft wind, for fear of capsizing the canoe.
Sometimes these boats were made with a square stern, and were then called pirogues; but this name was more frequently used where two such boats were rigidly united in parallel positions a few feet apart and completely floored over. On the floor was placed the cargo, which was protected from the weather by the use of skins. Oars were provided in the bow for rowing and a single oar in the stern between the boats for steering. Sails could be used with a quartering wind on these boats without danger of upsetting. Dubé’s ferry, on the Mississippi, one of the earliest ferries of St. Louis, used a boat of this kind.