by Danelle Cloutier

The pipe tomahawk served many purposes. Its hollow wooden handle and the pipe bowl on one side of the head allowed it to be used as a ceremonial smoking pipe, while the other side was a blade, allowing it to become a weapon with just a flip of the wrist. Believed to have been developed by a blacksmith from England, this dual-purpose invention was highly valued by Aboriginal traders. It represented the complex relationship between their communities and Europeans — which included both war and peace. The nineteenth-century pipe tomahawk pictured here, though, would have been used only for special occasions. It features intricate glass beadwork made by an Aboriginal woman on a loom, and its blade has three small holes. Pipe stems were often decorated with carvings, porcupine quills, or horsehair, and more ornate pipe tomahawks were a sign of prestige. Many were presented as gifts to Aboriginal leaders when negotiating trading relationships.

In the Beaver...

90 Years Ago

Robert Watson provided readers of The Beaver with some tips about writing poetry, saying a poet “must be highly strung, keenly attuned, sensitive as the disc of a recording phonograph to fleeting impressions.” Watson also noted that “there are no rules for writing poetry, and poets cannot be made.”

60 Years Ago

An Autumn 1954 article featured Patsy Henderson, the “only man living in the Yukon” at that time “who witnessed the discovery of gold in the Klondike.” W.D. MacBride, then president of the Yukon Historical Society, wrote about how word of the gold rush eventually reached the world and influenced the construction of the White Pass Railway between Carcross and Whitehorse in Yukon Territory.

30 Years Ago

In a Summer 1984 article, Ottawa researcher Thomas R. Roach explored how the Hudson’s Bay Company’s implementation of radio receivers and transmitters at its northern trading posts in the mid-1930s affected the enterprise. Radio allowed the company to quickly adjust store prices to reflect changing world fur prices and had a big impact on domestic life in the Arctic — company personnel relieved social isolation by communicating with family and friends.