The paddle of the kyak is made from a long piece of driftwood. Its proper length is the span of the owner (the full extent of the two extended arms), and half a span again. The blades are narrow, since they are for use at sea, and engage the most skilful attention of the craftsman. Both are tipped with ivory. This pouteek, as it is called, can be used as an outrigger. On top of the kyak, in front of the man, there are four strongly made loops of hide, the exact width of the blade of the paddle. If the rower wishes to stand up or give play to free movement, to cut up and store away a seal either upon the craft or inside it, he cannot do so without an outrigger or he would simply capsize. To prevent this, he pushes one end of the paddle into the loops, which hold it fast. The other end, outboard, acts as a counter-weight and exactly balances the canoe. It is then perfectly stable and almost impossible to upset. The dexterity of the kyaker has already been alluded to. He can do anything with this boat. His confidence is so complete that not infrequently, when a heavy wave is atop of him, he will deliberately turn turtle, receive the weight of the water on the bottom, and right himself when the moment is passed. The Umiak is a very different craft, and serves the Eskimo family as a sort of general pantechnicon and removing van. It consists of a large, clumsy framework of wood, covered with the skins of the big ground seal, which are dressed into a thick tough leather. It is really an open sailing boat, capable of carrying perhaps six families and a huge and miscellaneous cargo. It has a square stem and stern and a stumpy mast set well forward in the bows. The large square sail used to be made in earlier days of skin stitched together, or of the intestines of seals blown out and dried, then split open, the long, broad strips alternating with narrow strips of the same material, to ensure equal stretching and shrinking. Nowadays, the natives provide themselves with sail-cloth from the trading posts. The Umiak is an unhandy thing to manage, but a good enough boat in a heavy sea way. When on a long voyage up or down the coast or across the bays, in former times, the Umiak had a double skin; the outer covering becomes so waterlogged and the movement so sluggish that the whole thing is cast off, and the journey proceeds in the inner, lighter and drier shell. The gut sail requires constant wetting to prevent it splitting into ribbons. This primitive concern is paddled by women when the paddles become necessary, but a man has the steering in his charge.