I had someone come over a couple weeks ago with a bow from a local museum. The bow was made by a man called Victor Groulx who was of Algonquin decent, Victor died last month.
A bit of history of what I know about Victor: I met Victor many years ago and he was a bit of an odd person, he was at this time somewhat agoraphobic. Victor was raised in the bush and was for many years a trapper/hunter. About 30 years ago he developed an interest in his native heritage and started making bows and arrows, so far as I know Victor never used a bow for hunting. He did a lot of research and made many reproductions, most of which he donated to his local Museum. I remember going to visit Victor and he would tell me about how the Museum had mislabeled some of his work, which he tried to correct but gave up after awhile. He was an interesting man to talk with but a bit long winded for me
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Anyway, this woman, also an Algonquin, had come over with one of his bows. The top limb had been broken. I suspect what happened is that the bow had been "borrowed" for a play the woman was making with some local school children and one of the kids had yanked back on the string a bit too far. The bow was a nice looking, well decorated bow made of HHB backed with thin rawhide. It was short, haven't measured it but probably around 48", with slight recurves. The back is painted, there is quill work on the bow, strips of Weasel fur and what looks like tree bark wrap around the handle and tips. The only thing that detracts from the bow is the dacron string. My testing show that it was tillered to bend a bit too much in the outer limbs and that is why it failed there. Anyway, the rawhide had ripped and the back had suffered a serious tension failure. I told her I could fix it to look OK but there was no way it could ever be braced again.
It is a pity the Museum lent it out to someone that didn't know much about bows. Here are a few pictures that I took of the bow
