Geelong’s Canoe Tree

Geelong’s monument to the fishing and fowling industries of a past civilisation

The relatively well-known canoe tree still situated on the tenth fairway in the Queen’s Park Golf Links was recognised at least sixty years ago as a river red-gum from which the Indigenes of this district had stripped a two-metre plaque of bark to provide themselves with dry transport over water. It is a perfect example of the smallest and simplest water craft manufactured by Victorian tribespeople and it also typifies the custom of the People of the Blood who made that which sufficed for the job in hand by the least complicated method.

Bark canoes disappeared from the scene very shortly after white occupation of Australia and they had vanished entirely in Geelong and district by the time Waurrn Bunyip died in 1885. From this fact we may infer that the canoe-strip is at least a century old. A handful of Victorian canoes have been preserved in museums while some were utilised by settlers for containers: for instance, one is documented as ending up as a feedbox in the cow-bails of a dairy-farm. All that is left in the field are a few scarred trees. Very few of these exist today for it is the nature of trees to have a finite life. Besides, if the canoe-strip encompassed more than half the circumference of the tree, it had the same effect as ring-barking. The tree died soon after. Its natural life was curtailed. It is hoped that some method will be invented to date these relics by the study of cortex re-growth over scars where bark was removed; or, perhaps, radio-carbon dating may provide determination of the age of the canoe cuts.

While white man’s steel axes might have enabled some expansion of the canoe-making industry, white man’s territorial claims cut tribespeople off from natural resources which had been exploited down through generations. They were forbidden to strip trees, stands of which had been recognised tribal-rights of certain clans since time out of mind. Though government agencies might have supplied sufficient food for bodily needs, the people were deprived of sustenance of the spirit. They were barred from cultural pursuits (such as canoe-making) which were part of the pattern of their existence.

A Murrayvian bark float was merely a huge dish-shaped sheet of bark stripped from a mature gum tree. It could be used only on calm water. The flat craft was punted along by a long pole which also served as a fish-harpoon. One end was set with barbs of stone or a kangaroo incisor or with spikes of polished hardwood or bone. As well as fishing for eels by torchlight, it was ideal for pursuing aquatic birds in moult or for harvesting their eggs. After white invasion, punts concealed in scrub thickets often aided natives to elude their pursuers.

To make a koo-ron (alternative spelling: Korrong. As Buckley used this word we can infer that it was part of the Wathaurong vocabulary) the canoe-maker first chose a tree upon which he could already perceive the shape of the craft. Mostly, such trees leaned and they needed to be curved so that the bark peeled off would need very little modification. Dubbed “the most primitive appliance ever used by mankind for the purpose of navigation,” it would float only one or two persons and required the greatest care allied with fine-tuned balancing skills to prevent it overturning. Slightly larger and more complicated boat-like types were made from the bark of box, ash or stringy-bark where these trees were native to the vegetation. These trees were common in Gippsland but only in the uplands would they have been available in Wathaurung territory. Bark oblongs from these species were treated over fire, the ends tied with hair and bark cordage and sealed with gum and/or clay.

Hawker considered that a great deal of judgment was required to make a Murrayvian canoe for all they looked so simple. Expertise culled from aeons of tribal experience demanded the choice of trees rooted in lacustrine or riparian environment where they would be better nurtured and more likely to have thin, flexible bark. Toeholes were first cut into the bark with fire-hardened yam-sticks or polished axes. This allowed the maker to reach the upper margin of his work. Pliable, thin laths of wood were inserted between the bark and the cambium layer of the trunk—or wedges of stone were hammered in—before the bark was peeled from the slippery, convex facet.

A hollow was scraped out of the soil the desired shape of the koo-ron. The freshly-stripped plaque was laid over this three-dimensional template and weighted down with mud and/or clay. It was left to dry in this ideal shape which bent the stem up and produced a little gunnel. This process indurated the bark allowing the oleo-resins to cure: i.e., to set in shape yet still retain some resilience. It was, in effect, a bent-wood artifact.

Bark canoes could carry a considerable load but, especially the smaller varieties, were difficult to balance. It needed something of the skill and agility of today’s expert skateboard rider to navigate a craft with so little freeboard. Hamilton Hume states that white settlers often benefited by commandeering the use of Aboriginal koo-ron to transport their goods across swamps or streams or to evade hostile natives. The average tied canoe could carry six sheep, provided their feet were tied, or several bales of wool. They needed to commandeer, at the same time, the services of an Aboriginal operator for the boat had to be kept in trim. Europeans found one difficult to manoeuvre and almost impossible to balance. Nearer to home, an early Geelong resident who missed the punt near “Kardinia” was able to have himself ferried across on bark to land safely in South Barwon.

Where the heartwood was exposed by stripping, the tree was vulnerable to fire. At Queen’s Park, during Australia’s Bi-centennial year, our unique monument was nearly lost when the tree was accidentally ignited after the tree-hollow was cleared of rubbish deposited by thoughtless litterbug golfers and was being dried out. The fire brigade had to be called out to the rescue (see Geelong Advertiser, 11/8/88).

Several steps have been taken in past years to trim the tree in an effort to make it last in situ as long as possible. Not long ago the top limbs were lopped lest the trunk were blown down and a “hat” of plastic was tied over to stop rain water penetrating the hollow trunk. It is hoped that the Victoria Archaeological Survey, under the direction of the Ministry of Planning and Development, are persuaded to erect a notice beside this important stump. Sadly, it is inevitable that the relic must perish. Dare we hope that it may last until the Geelong Bi-centennial?

Bibliography

Bennet, Samuel – History of Australian Discovery and Colonization
Edwards, Robert – Aboriginal Bark Canoes
McCarthy, Frederick D. – Aboriginal Antiquities in Australia
Smyth, R. Brough – Aborigines of Victoria: Book 2
Tindale, Norman – Aboriginal Australians