DCHP-1 Online

bateau batto(e) [< F bateau] Hist.

• 1 n. a boat such as a sloop or large rowboat.

  • 1760  In going up they are obliged to half unload their battoes. . . .
  • 1785  (1943)  When he goes to Quebec, it's generally in a bateau of his own, which he prefers to calashes.
  • 1840  All Passengers [are] to pay their own Ferriage while crossing in Bateaus.

• 2 n. a flat-bottomed cargo and passenger boat about 30 feet long, tapered to bow and stern, drawing little water, and propelled by oars, poles, or a sail, originally designed for the treacherous river route between Upper and Lower Canada.

  See also: Canadian boat  

  • 1765  (1905)  To Sundry Expences . . . Viz.: postage by Landhire or Batteaus.
  • 1806  (1809)  Bateaux, and canoes, convey to Upper Canada . . . the European commodities they want.
  • 1963  Upper Canada village near Morrisburg, Ontario, offers . . . an exciting trip by bateau through "the first lock canal in all of North America."

• 3 n. a clumsy, flat-bottomed boat about 19 feet long between tapered ends, propelled by oars, crewed by six men, and capable of carrying about 4,000 pounds of cargo. This prototype for the York boat was widely used throughout the northwest until recent years.

  See also: flat-boat  pointer (def. 2)  upland boat  

  • 1781  (1954)  They had coverings . . . to keep their Goods dry in their Battaux or Canoes.
  • 1938  In . . . summer [I travelled] by birch-bark canoe, York boat and bateau. . . .
  • 1963  Leaving King to bring up the heavy bateaux, Back and McLeod hurried on by canoe. . . .

• 4 n. an inland freight boat, descended from the bateau, in common use from the early 1820's but used for tripping as early as 1790, and finally withdrawn from service entirely about 1930. See picture at York boat.

  See also: York boat  

  • 1859  The Hudson's Bay Company's batteau, with a valuable cargo, for Fort Yale, was crushed in the ice, below Six Tree Shoot, about ten days ago.
  • 1898  (1957)  Twelve large Battoes [York boats] were sent from Fort Garry to convey the troops up the River. Each boat had 8 men as a crew--6 oarsmen, one to steer with a long oar, and one at the bow with a long pole and hook with which to shove her clear of a rock ahead or with the hook to catch hold of anything.
  • 1960  For these men it wasn't a pleasant Sunday drive over a black macadam ribbon, but a two-day trudge with heavy "batteaux."