The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North AmericaChapelle, Howard Irving
History
The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America
Chapelle, Howard Irving
Canoes and canoeing -- North America; Indians of North America -- Boats; Skin boats -- North America
The Unalaska kayak of 1894 (below) is a better known type. This design
is used throughout the Aleutians and on the adjacent mainland as far
east as Prince William Sound. It was also employed in the Pribilof
Islands and at St. Matthew, having been used by Aleuts engaged in
sealing expeditions there. All kayaks of this type do not have the same
bow and stern profiles as the example; some have the bifid bow built
with the portion above the slit arched upward higher than the outer
stem-piece and so more prominent; there are also minor variations in
the stern. The shape of the hull, however, is consistently maintained
throughout the area in which this type is used. Though the deck is
ridged, it is relatively low compared to that of the Kodiak kayak, and
the thwarts supporting the manhole are heavily arched and in one piece
from gunwale to gunwale. The construction is like that of the Kodiak
kayak, but the gunwales and upper longitudinal battens, instead of
meeting the stern post, end on a crosspiece well inside the stern to
give the effect of a transom stern. However, some Aleut kayaks have the
normal sharp stern after the fashion of the Kodiak kayak, but without
the projecting tail or handgrip, and nearly all have two thwarts
between the after manhole thwart and the stern and three forward of
the fore manhole thwart. The skin cover passes over the manhole rim
as in the Kodiak type. The bow block is sometimes built up of two
blocks sewn or laced together. Strengthening pieces of light plank are
sometimes fitted from the bow block aft; these are laced to the top
inside edge of the gunwales and pinned to the stem block to form long
breast-hooks. In some kayaks with the square stern, only the gunwale is
supported by the crosspiece on the stern, the two battens on each side
being supported by the last frame only, about 6 inches inboard of the
crosspiece.
[Illustration: Figure 179
KAYAK FROM RUSSIAN SIBERIA, 2-hole Aleutian type, in Washington State
Historical Society and Museum. Taken off by John Heath, 1962.]
This type of kayak is the only one known to have been built with more
than one manhole. The two-hole kayak is an Aleut development used in
whaling and sea-otter hunting, so far as is known; the paddler sits
in the after manhole. Measurements of a two-hole kayak in the United
States National Museum show it to be 20 feet 7¼ inches long, 23 inches
beam, and 9½ inches deep to top of gunwale. The manholes are about 46
inches apart edge to edge and the foremost is about 8 feet from the bow.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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