Once the harvests of the field were safely in, the Indian [men], old and young, could turn to hunting, since the flesh animals and fowl would then spoil less readily. Morning and evening were the times for ducks and geese. Following well-known flyways, these birds settled at night in river meadows and salt marshes or rested at ease on smooth water. The hunters would drift in quietly in canoes, light torches to cause sudden confusion among the birds, and knock them down with clubs or paddles. Then a specially trained canoe dog, sitting in the bow, would jump into the water and retrieve the game.
Howard S. Russell Indian New England Before the Mayflower (1980) p. 178-179. *I edited one word to make it sound a little less ethnocentric.
One must not assume that these dogs were ever used to make the retrievers we know today. They might be distant ancestors of the St. John’s water dog or the Nova Scotia duck-tolling retriever, but I’ve not seen any evidence that points in this direction. It is an interesting finding that dogs were used as retrievers before the Europeans arrived in North America. That said, it native North American dogs did not do well with the arrival of European strains. Indeed, virtually all Native American dogs are heavily mixed with European dogs, and it is thought that most of them are primarily of European extraction.
I have read about canoe dogs that belonged to the Innu inLabrador and Quebec. These dogs were used in exactly the same way as the New England canoe dogs.
Now, I am in no way suggesting that these dogs are ancestors of retrievers or the St. John’s water dog. I just find it very interesting that these dogs existed in pre-Columbian civilizations in the northeastern parts of North America.
It’s possible that one of these Innu canoe dogs wound up in Newfoundland during the period in which several nations of Europe were beginning to exploit the Grand Banks. Maybe a few of these dogs helped found the St. John’s water dog. I don’t know.
I do know that the native Beothuck did not have dogs, so any dogs that arrived in Newfoundland had to either come from Europe or the mainland.
Now, I do remember reading about canoe dogs somewhere, but my understanding of what they looked like was something like a Tahltan Bear Dog.
So these dogs may not have been in the retriever and Newfoundland dog gene pool after all.
However, it is interesting that the native peoples of this continent knew how to use dogs as retrievers, even if they don’t play a role in the development of the modern retrievers.
And for those native hunters, their retrievers meant the difference between getting meat for the table or not.
Tho’ I’m not very familiar at all to the scema, I just like tell to put an article i red in a canadian dog-magazine. http://www.dogsincanada.com/the-canadian-breeds-the-labrador-retriever
And here I put the chapater of that very same article:
” – – – The Archaic Indians, who originally inhabited Newfoundland, had dogs. Prof. James Tuck of Memorial University of Newfoundland discovered the graves of two dogs in excavations at Port au Choix. Carbon dated at 3930 +/- 130 BP (around 4,000 years ago), these dogs were probably between 45 and 55 pounds and “Most likely kept for companionship and for use in the hunt….” (Tuck, Ancient Peoples of Port aux Choix, Study #17).”
Only two; that old; not much to talk about..
I don’t know if anyone could connect these dogs to the retrievers/St. John’s water dog. It would be interesting if someone could find a link through the DNA. My view is that these dogs are derived from European settler stock– but very diverse stock at that!
All retrievers have the St. John’s water dog as ancestor.
I don’t count the Labrador as Canadian, but it is derived from a breed from Canada called the St. John’s water dog. The modern Lab was developed on two estates in Britain– one early one in England and one later one in Scotland. Most of the modern dogs derive from the latter estate– the Duke of Buccleuch’s estate, where there is still a well-established line of these dogs.
Ps. I must add one “furry” thing. During the few hot summer weeks (here in Scandinavia) my lab sheds a LOT. That stops immediatly, if climate turns to a bit colder. I know the arctic breeds like Grönlandhund lose the beauti of their fur in too warm conditions. My sporty (some say skinny) lab don’t like the hot, too.
Could this feature be taken as a mark of an “arctic base” in lab’s geene pole; I don’t know?
I’ve thought about this, and I have some interesting things:
https://retrieverman.wordpress.com/2008/12/04/st-johns-water-dogs-in-the-tweed-water-spaniels-ancestry/
Richard Lawrence, an early professional veterinarian, wrote a book called the Complete Farrier and British Sportsman. He feels that the Newfoundland dog and the St. John’s water dog were derived from crossing the British water dog type with a “Greenland dog” (Grönlandhund). Now, there is a dog in Labrador that is of the hauling husky type– very similar to the Grönlandhund. So it’s possible.
These dogs are of a very diverse mixture of strains. I’ve found a the Portuguese water dog and the Cao de Castro Laboreiro, along with collie-types, setters, French setting spaniels, land spaniels, and water spaniels that could be ancestors.
[…] American hauling spitz type) may have played a role in their development. It is also possible that the Native American dogs that were used to retrieve ducks shot from canoes were used in their […]
It is is said the Beothucks didn’t have dogs.
There’s a whitness tho’ and his reports, namely Richard Whitbourne. The reports are originated y. 1621.
I red somewhere a reasecher saying, that the Beothucks were put so down, that even their dogs were ripped away from them.
He meant this figuratively, as I remember him / her beeing a modern scientist; but as we can read in the books, the ripping happened also concretely.
[…] It turns out that this may be the fabled canoe dog on which this post is […]
[…] should note here that there is some suggestion that retrievers descend in part from the so-called “canoe dogs “of the native peoples of New England, Quebec, and the Maritimes. (Here’s a photo, incorrectly called a “retrieving […]
[…] Labs that are smaller than normal. The term comes from a possible linkage between these so-called “canoe dogs” that acted as retrievers for the native peoples of the Northeast and Eastern Canada. Speculatively, […]
[…] from canoes. Their smaller size made them quite useful in this task, one that they share with the canoe dogs of the certain Northeastern tribes and the canoe Labradors. Smaller dogs just don’t take up that much […]