C is for Canoes - 14 - Tim Mee

Tim Mee have two canoes, I've seen the first in red, green and yellow, but we're looking at all yellow ones today, courtesy of Brian B again;

The first version is a slightly clumsy design, presumably meant to be a bath toy, but given long rods on either side (missing here) to help its path as a carpet-toy by keeping it upright, the over-emphasised keel otherwise making standing level impossible - Brain has leant his against the bank of his encampment here, to show it to us in a realistic attitude!

 

An online image shows one of the two long rods or spigots which contact with the surface and keep the boat level for flat-surface play, lifting the figure to the same height as any of standing around it!

 

The re-design gave it more of a 'waterline' look, and it's one of the problems with these (the Cherilea particularly), how realistic do you make something which only stays level in a bath or basin, but which is going to be played with on the floor or a table?

 

This, both Tim Mee's in fact, are smooth-hulled models in the streamlined style of modern canoes, but I guess by the time US forces or the RCMP in Canada were using commercial designs of plank construction, some must have found their way into Native hands? I'm musing out-loud here, I don't know for sure!