The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America 45

The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America 45

ARCTIC SKIN BOATS

 

_Howard I. Chapelle_

 

 

Among the three primitive watercraft of North America (the others being

the dugout and the bark canoe of the American Indians), the Arctic

skin boats of the Eskimos are remarkable for effective design and

construction obtained under conditions in which building materials are

both scarce and limited in selection. The Arctic skin boat is almost

entirely to be found in the North American Arctic from Bering Sea to

the East Coast of Greenland. In Russian Siberia, only in a small area

of the eastern Arctic lands adjacent to the North American continent

are any employed.

 

These craft, an important and necessary factor in the hunting lives

of most Eskimo tribal groups, have long attracted the attention of

explorers and ethnologists, and many specimens have been deposited

in American and European museums. Like bark canoes, they have

unfortunately proved difficult to preserve under conditions of museum

exhibit. As a result, examples of once numerous types have become

so damaged that they no longer give an accurate impression of their

original form and appearance, and some have so deteriorated that they

have had to be destroyed. Among the latter may have been examples

of types long since out of use. One such type was represented by a

single kayak, now destroyed; as a result this form has become extinct,

and only a poor scale model remains to give a highly unsatisfactory

representation of it.

 

In 1946 the late Vilhjalmur Stefansson, who was then projecting his

_Encyclopedia Arctica_, asked me to prepare for it a technical article

on the Arctic skin boat. The decision of the sponsors to discontinue

the publication, after the first volume had appeared, prevented

appearance of the article, but in 1958, through the kindness of Dr.

Stefansson, it was returned to the author for publication by the U.S.

National Museum. I have since revised and added to it, after receiving

criticisms and suggestions from Henry B. Collins, of the Smithsonian's

Bureau of American Ethnology, from John Heath, and from other

authorities.[2]

 

[2] For their aid to him the author takes this occasion to extend

particular thanks. He also thanks his Smithsonian Institution

colleagues in the Division of Ethnology, U.S. National Museum; members

of the staffs of The American Museum of Natural History and The Museum

of the American Indian in New York, of the Peabody Museum at Harvard,

and of the Stefansson Library at Dartmouth; and the Washington State

Historical Society and Museum, and others in the Northwest who gave

both aid and encouragement.

 

The object of the study, as will be seen, was to measure the skin boats

and to make scale drawings that would permit the construction of a

replica exact in details of appearance, form, construction, and also in

working behavior. Special regard was given to the diversity of types

with respect to hull form and construction methods; but questions of

ethnic trends, tribal migrations, and such matters, being outside the

scope of the study, were not considered. Wherever possible, full-size

craft were used as the source, but where only fragments existed, these

had to be supplemented by reference to and interpretation of models of

the same type.

 

In spite of the difficulty of locating skin boats of some Arctic areas,

examples of most of those mentioned by explorers since 1875 have been

found and recorded, so that, as far as possible, every distinctive

tribal type of Arctic skin boat which in 1946 was represented by museum

exhibits in the eastern United States is represented in plans here.

 

[Illustration: Figure 157

 

EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY LINES DRAWING of a kayak, from Labrador or southern

Baffin Island (according to Dr. Kaj Birket-Smith of the Danish National

Museum). Note the long stem that is characteristic of present day

kayaks from Labrador. The lettering apparently reads:

 

From Strait's Sⁿᵗ. David

A Canoe--N.B. The sections are 2 feet asunder from forward

Length 21'-6"

Breadth 2'-1½"

Depth 0'-8¼"

 

(_Courtesy National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, England._)]

 

With the material available it was not possible, of course, to explore

all the individual types and forms in full; hence, the geographical

range of a type can be stated only approximately, owing to the

overlapping of tribal groups and the almost constant migratory movement

of the Eskimo. Originally the 2-and 3-cockpit kayaks of Russian

colonial Alaska had been omitted as being probably the results of

Russian influence. John Heath, however, believing attention should be

given to this type, has very kindly prepared for me a fine draught of

such a kayak, or "baidarka" (other spellings of this name are common);

this is shown on page 197.

 

Although the scale drawings accurately represent the form and details

of construction, they necessarily idealize somewhat the primitive boat

design. Also, in showing the hull-form, the usual method of projecting

the "lines" of the hull was discarded as unsuitable. Instead structural

features have been emphasized, with the result that "round"-bottom

kayaks appear as multi-chine hulls, as they properly are. In view

of the fluid state of design in Eskimo craft it is obvious that the

examples shown represent the stage of development at the given date,

though the alteration in most designs has been so gradual that the

representation could serve to illustrate with reasonable accuracy a

tribal or area type for a decade or more.

 

The Eskimos have produced two types of skin boats that have proved

remarkably efficient craft for small-boat navigation in Arctic waters:

an open boat ranging from about 15 to approximately 60 feet in length

for carrying cargo and passengers for long distances, and a small

decked canoe developed exclusively for hunting. With few exceptions

these Arctic skin boats are wholly seagoing craft.

 

The open boat, called the umiak, is propelled by paddles or oars or

sail or, in recent years, by an outboard gasoline engine, or it may be

towed. While fundamentally a cargo carrier the umiak has been employed

by some Eskimo in whaling and in walrus hunting. For these purposes a

faster and more developed design is used than that used only to carry

families, household goods, and cargo in the constant Eskimo search

for new hunting grounds. To a far greater degree than any other boat

of similar size, this Eskimo boat is characterized by great strength

combined with lightness.

 

The decked hunting canoe, the kayak, is propelled by paddle alone

when used for hunting and fishing, but is occasionally towed by the

umiak when the owner travels. The kayak is perhaps the most efficient

example of a primitive hunting boat; it can be propelled at high

speed by its paddler and maneuvered with ease. These hunting kayaks

are commonly built to hold but one person, though one group of Eskimo

built the kayaks to carry two or three. The kayak, remarkable for its

seaworthiness, lightness and strength, has been perhaps one of the most

important tools in the Eskimo fight for existence. Few tribes have been

unacquainted with its use. Because of its employment, the kayak often

has to be designed to meet very particular requirements and so there is

greater variation in its form and dimensions than in the umiak.

 

Seagoing skin boats have not been common outside the Arctic in

historical times. In fact only the European Celts are known with

certainty to have used such craft. The Irish, in particular, employed

large seagoing skin boats as late as the reign of Queen Elizabeth

of England; a drawing of one preserved in the Pepysian Library was

reproduced in the _Mariner's Mirror_ (vol. 8, 1922, facing p. 200).

Although there can be little doubt that large seagoing skin craft had

been more widely used in prehistoric times, the perishable nature of

the skin covering and the light framework probably account for the

lack of any archeological remains that would indicate its range. The

availability of the materials required in its construction, however,

suggest that its use could have been very widespread. The long voyages

made by the Irish, in the dawning of recorded history, could well have

made its design and construction known to others.

 

There are still many skin boats in use by primitive people and even a

few survivals in Europe, but with the exception of the Irish "curragh,"

these craft are designed for inland waters and are either rather

dish-shaped, or oval in plan, like half a walnut shell. In design they

are related to the coracle of ancient Britain rather than to a seagoing

skin boat of the Irish or Eskimo type. Both the Irish curragh and the

British coracle, now, of course, are covered with canvas rather than

hide.

 

Traditions of long voyages by the ancient Irish in the skin-covered

curragh make it apparent that such voyages were relatively common,

and the design and construction of existing models of the curragh and

umiak indicate that these voyages could have been made with reasonable

safety. Compared to the dugout canoe, the skin boat was far lighter

and roomier in proportion to length and so could carry a far greater

load and still retain enough freeboard to be safe. The size of the

early skin boats cannot be established with certainty; the modern Irish

curragh is probably debased in this respect, but early explorers of

Greenland reported umiaks nearly 60 feet in length and there is no

structural reason why the curragh could not have been as large or even

larger.

 

Compared with the curragh, the umiak is lighter, stronger, and more

resistant to shock. The curragh was built with closely spaced bent

frames and longitudinal stringers to support the skin cover, whereas

the umiak has very widely spaced frames and few longitudinals, giving

the skin cover little support. The difference in construction is

undoubtedly a result of the type of covering used, for the curragh

was covered with cattle hides, which were less strong than the seal

or walrus skins used by the Eskimo. The strong and elastic skin cover

of the umiak and the lack of a rigid structural support gives this

boat an advantage in withstanding the shocks of beaching or of working

in floating ice; and because of its relatively light framework and

the method of securing the structural members, its frame is far more

flexible than that of the curragh, adding to this ability.

 

The skin cover of the curragh was made watertight by rubbing the hides

with animal fat, and the sewn seams were payed with tallow. The Eskimo

soak the skin cover of the umiak with animal oil and pay the seams

with blubber or animal fat. Both treatments produced a cover initially

watertight but requiring drying and reoiling to remain so. Under

most climatic conditions in the North Atlantic or Pacific the oiled

skins remain watertight from four days to a week. This period can be

lengthened by various methods; skin boats travelling in company can be

dried out in turn by unloading one and placing it aboard a companion

craft. There is evidence of other methods of treating the skin

covering; waterproofing it with melted tallow, for example, or with

a vegetable gum or a resin such as pitch, would enable it to remain

watertight for a much longer time, though such treatments would make

the covering less elastic. Pitch was also used at one time in curragh

building, and it would be unwise to assume that the oil treatment used by the Eskimo was their only method of producing watertight skin covers in the period before they were first observed by Europeans.