Perhaps the next most important business of the Eskimo women, after cooking and making the clothes, is the preparation of skins for the two types of boat in use on the coast. This entails considerable labour and skill. The men are responsible for the framework. The kyak—a creation as truly national to these intrepid coasters as the snowshoe may be to the Indian, the ski to the Norwegian, and the alpenstock to the Swiss mountaineer—is a covered canoe, graceful as a fish, for use at sea. It can be handled in the roughest weather. It consists of a light framework, formerly of whalebone, but now generally of driftwood, fastened together with thongs of sealskin. It is from eighteen to twenty feet in length, strong and elastic to a degree, and entirely covered with skins, almost resembling a torpedo in shape, with long, tapering extremities. There is a small circular opening amid-ships, where the kyaker sits, fitting closely round his body. In rough weather he wears a waterproof jacket (of seal gut), the hood fitting tightly round his face and the sleeves to his wrists. The lower edge of this comes over the opening in the canoe and is laced round it, so that man and craft are fairly one. The Rev. A. L. Fleming, formerly a naval architect, informed the writer that the lines of the kyak are perfect, and from the point of view of sea-going architecture could not be improved. The Baffin Land kyak is broader than the Greenland type. The latter is much narrower, and requires great skill to handle. Readers of Arctic literature will recall Nansen’s account of the extraordinary feats performed by the Eskimo on the west coast of Greenland in manœuvring these canoes. The Baffin Islanders are also very skilful. They can right themselves, if completely overturned, by a peculiar quick jerk of the paddle. The kyak cannot fill, should the waves wash right over it. It probably comes nearer the ideal of an unsinkable boat than many a more ambitious construction. It would be hard to say, as between hunting and fishing (the staple business of their lives), which is the characteristic national “sport” of the Eskimo; but certainly no one not born and bred to the handling of the kyak could acquire the native degree of ease and daring. The sealskins for these canoes are bleached. Either they are scalded, or tied in bundles and hung up in a warm atmosphere to ferment. This process is allowed to go on for a week or two, until the stench becomes unbearable. When taken down and shaved with the ooloo, the black epidermis comes away with the hair, leaving the skins beautifully white. The inner membranes are left intact. The next step is to stitch the skins together. Bleached hides may be made to alternate with unbleaced ones, by way of ornament; or the entire covering may be merely black or brown.