DCHP-1 Online
canot allège Cdn French "unburdened canoe" Hist. 
a fast light canoe (def. 1) used by the fur-traders for speedy delivery of officials, communications, correspondence, and special goods.
See also: canoe ((n.)) (def. 1) express canoe
- 1850 Our canoe was thirty-six feet long, sharp at each end, six feet wide in the middle, and made of birch bark, in sheets sewn together with vegetable fibre, and the seams gummed up close. The sides are strengthened and steadied by four or six cross-bars lashed to the rim of the canoe, and the inside is protected by slender ribs of a light wood, but the bottom by only a few loose poles. It is called a light canoe, or "canot lâche"; because intended to go swiftly, and to carry only provisions and personal baggage. Its usual complement is nineteen--that is, fifteen paddle-men and four gentlemen passengers: the latter sitting each on his rolled-up bed in the middle compartment.
- 1860 (1956) The principal distinction I heard the Voyageurs make was between canots à lége and canots de charge.
- 1942 The most celebrated voyageur canoe . . . was the . . . canot allege--unburdened or express canoe.
- 1850 Our canoe was thirty-six feet long, sharp at each end, six feet wide in the middle, and made of birch bark, in sheets sewn together with vegetable fibre, and the seams gummed up close. The sides are strengthened and steadied by four or six cross-bars lashed to the rim of the canoe, and the inside is protected by slender ribs of a light wood, but the bottom by only a few loose poles. It is called a light canoe, or "canot lâche"; because intended to go swiftly, and to carry only provisions and personal baggage. Its usual complement is nineteen--that is, fifteen paddle-men and four gentlemen passengers: the latter sitting each on his rolled-up bed in the middle compartment.