The Coast Salish style canoe was designed for use in the calm waters of Puget Sound and its many small bays and inlets. Both the prow and the stern curve upwards from a rounded bottom. Salish canoes were often painted black with brightly colored figures near the prow and stern. The Coast Salish style of canoe was more lightly constructed than other canoes built by Indigenous peoples and was not suited for longer voyages or in rough waters. It was also not as useful for fishing, carrying cargo, or raiding and as a result the style was gradually replaced by the more robust West Coast style of canoe, originally built by the Nuu-Chah-Nulth of Vancouver Island.

This image shows a Coast Salish style canoe piloted by an Indigenous person in Port Townsend Bay on the Olympic Peninsula. A few other watercraft are visible in the right background, including a sailing ship and a steamship. The Klallam (also spelled S'Klallam), a Coast Salish group, lived in and around Port Townsend and the subject of this image may be a Klallam.

The photographer, James McCurdy, was born in Port Townsend in 1872. He spent many years of his childhood in Neah Bay on the Makah reservation and returned to Port Townsend in 1894.

Caption information source: Caption information source: "Northwest Coast Canoes," Simon Fraser University, retrieved from https://www.sfu.ca/brc/art_architecture/canoes.html.
Caption information source: Charles T. Hommel, A Guide to Historical Photograph Collections in Seattle, p. 33