The Snetlum Canoe
Several years ago I was contacted by a physicist at Seattle University who received some pigment samples from a curator at the Island County Historical Society on Whidbey Island, WA; he asked if I could analyze them. I told him to send them along. About a week later I got a chunk of cedar about 16" long and 4" wide with oxidized black paint on one side, a red stripe and blue paint on the other side. I immediately knew what I was looking at: a carbon based black on the exterior, the traditional red ochre (NW Coast canoes almost always have a red line painted at or below the gunwale) line just below the gunwale, and coating the inside below the red line, blue pigment- in a word, vivianite.
This has lead to an interesting research project, both researching the origins and history of the canoe mentioned in the article below, and in following this new trail of vivianite paint.
Until this project came along I had thought deposits of vivianite were probably small and scarce. However, I learned in conversations from Bill Holm and Duane Pasco that is was common practice during the mid 1800's to early 1900's for Indigenous canoe builders of Puget Sound and other NW Coast regions to paint the insides of their sea-going canoes with blue paint. This opened my thinking to the probability that there was far more vivianite available, and in multiple locations than I originally thought - the rational being that if it was a scarce commodity, or one that had to be traded for, it would not have been used so lavishly and extensively to paint large objects. This has in fact turned out to be true; vivianite can be found almost everywhere along the NW Coast from southern Washington to SE Alaska and the deposits are often extensive, encompassing miles. According to geologists, about 17% of the northern tier of Whatcom county is underlaid with vivianite.
In Progress: Please check back soon
This has lead to an interesting research project, both researching the origins and history of the canoe mentioned in the article below, and in following this new trail of vivianite paint.
Until this project came along I had thought deposits of vivianite were probably small and scarce. However, I learned in conversations from Bill Holm and Duane Pasco that is was common practice during the mid 1800's to early 1900's for Indigenous canoe builders of Puget Sound and other NW Coast regions to paint the insides of their sea-going canoes with blue paint. This opened my thinking to the probability that there was far more vivianite available, and in multiple locations than I originally thought - the rational being that if it was a scarce commodity, or one that had to be traded for, it would not have been used so lavishly and extensively to paint large objects. This has in fact turned out to be true; vivianite can be found almost everywhere along the NW Coast from southern Washington to SE Alaska and the deposits are often extensive, encompassing miles. According to geologists, about 17% of the northern tier of Whatcom county is underlaid with vivianite.
In Progress: Please check back soon
