Tag Archives: bull boats

Down To The River In Boats

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The Journeyers carrying the Bull boat to the Arkansas river

One of the curses of river travel is portaging, or the art of unpacking the boat, then carrying the boat around unmanageable obstacles in the river, such as rapids, or log jams created by the last flood, to a place where you can put the boat back in the water again. Then going back to your last take-out point to retrieve your cargo and belongings and carry them to the new put-in place, repack the boat and set off again down stream towards your destination. If you’re lucky the next portage may be more than a half mile or so downstream. Sometimes it was less.

Unless you were on one of the big rivers, the mighty Mo, or the Mississippi, this was your fate, and your job. No long stretches of glamorous carefree floating, watching the tree line casually pass on by, or spending too much time watching the sandstone cliffs reaching for the sky while traveling through incredible red rock canyons, paddling just enough to maintain control of your vessel as you floated closer to your journeys end. That’s what you thought it would be like if you’d never traveled down one of the smaller rivers in the west. Prior travelers knew better.

This was not the fastest travel in the west. In fact given the amount of time you spent portaging, or laying out your gear on a rocky sand bar to dry after a collision with a submerged snag or some other hidden danger lying in wait to tear the bottom out of your boat, you probably could have put every thing on your back and humped it to where ever you were going quicker. If you had the strength that is. There’s a lot to reconsider if you think that it was a simple thing to simply go down to the river in boats and sail serenely to your destination. The West wasn’t always easy but it was always beautiful, exciting and adventuresome, the trials and tribulations of daily life not withstanding.

Bull Boats On The Arkansas River

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Bruce Day – Gabe Hanratty in Bull Boat on the Arkansas river

Bull Boats, they’re all the rage on the Western rivers in the 1830’s- 40’s. Here’s one now loaded to the gunnels with everything necessary for a journey. Including but not limited to beaver traps, miscellaneous beaver trapping paraphernalia other than traps, supplies, sundries, ointments, unguents, bandages, fulminate of mercury tablets, food stuffs, a book on how to trap beaver and make money, another book of maps of unknown beaver rich tributaries, 12th ed., fire starting gear, tobacco, pipes to smoke tobacco with, extra things to repair the boat in case it gets ruin’t, pen and water proof ink to write help messages with, many small letter size pieces of parchment to write on, compass, hatchet, extra gunpowder in Arkansas river-proof containers, 200 hundred individually flaked flints for their rifles, two rifles, musket balls, lead to make musket balls, small cast iron pot to melt lead, little patches of cloth to separate ball from gunpowder in rifle, another hatchet in case head comes off first one, English to Comanche dictionary, complete foldable chart of American English to Indian sign language with full illustrations, pistols, very sharp knives, extra feathers for hats, sinew to sew feathers back on if loosened by turbulence, extra leather soles to put in moccasins in case of walking in rocky river, small needles to remove splinters from eye if not ducking in time, beeswax to maintain buffalo tails at either end of boat, good intentions, two excellent mountain men bull boat drivers and other things too numerous to mention. All in all a perfect set up to be a successful river runner.

Arkansas River Journey

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Journey’s beginning – Launching onto the Arkansas river

The Arkansas river is one of the major tributaries to the Mississippi river and as such has been a favorite river to travel on for fun or profit for years. More fun now than it was in the past when people used it to move goods by using small boats to carry freight from here to there so they wouldn’t have to lug it on their backs, or deal with cranky mules and other beasts of burden. A boatload of stuff gained in value when it didn’t take as much effort to get it from one place to another. It wasn’t unusual to see small wooden boats called pireaux, a form of flat bottomed canoe, floating down the river sunk nearly to the gunnels, filled with hides and other items of value. Captained by hearty but not necessary fearless captains, they traveled over placid stretches of the river, or if unlucky, through class 5 rapids when they didn’t make the cautious decision to portage around them. Traveling through class 5 rapids usually meant disaster in one form or another and was considered a mistake by those that tried it.

Another form of watercraft used on the river was a small usually two man boat called a bull boat. This was a more definite canoe shaped boat made out of buffalo hides stretched over a crude wooden frame constructed of tree parts of some type. A small log about 3-4 inches in diameter ran the length of the boat and served as its keel. Thinner branches were bent into ribs and placed perpendicular to the keel and held in place by a gunnel, which gave shape to the boat and allowed buffalo hides to be stretched over them to complete the craft. The seams between the hides were then sealed with pitch obtained from pine trees. This allowed a certain fragility to be introduced into the making of these boats as the seams were the weak link in its manufacture. However when luck prevailed these were sturdy and serviceable craft.

They were much more maneuverable than the other form of bull boats in use, which were round bowl shaped craft that were obviously designed by a committee. They were completely impossible to steer or direct in any manner whatsoever, due to not having a front or back, and being round were completely at the mercy of the wind and currents. They were used in an attempt to somehow cross a body of water while carrying people and their belongings. Normally the boatspeople in this type of bull boat wound up on the other side of the water they were attempting to cross merely by good fortune and helpful currents their constant and frantic paddling not withstanding. Their main contribution to river use was to keep the passengers less wet than if they had to wade or swim across the body of water obstructing their travel.

In the spirit ot times past the folks in the picture above are starting out with high hopes and gentle souls in the belief that they will have a delightful but uneventful trip down the Arkansas river. Given how life works we know the odds on this happening are roughly one in several hundred thousand. You have a better chance of finding a solid gold nugget the size of your ex-mother-in-laws head. One can say with certainty however, that they did have a trip. It was eventful, and their gentle souls were tested by the vagaries of river travel of which more will be written later. At this point in time the launch was successful and it looked as if it will be clear sailing ahead. May the winds be at their backs.