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.
[Illustration: Figure 158
WESTERN ALASKAN UMIAK with eight women paddling, Cape Prince of Wales,
Alaska, 1936. (_Photo by Henry B. Collins._)]
[Illustration: Figure 159
WESTERN ALASKAN UMIAK being beached, Cape Prince of Wales, Alaska,
1936. (_Photo by Henry B. Collins._)]
[Illustration: Figure 160
REPAIRING UMIAK FRAME at St. Lawrence Island, Alaska, 1930. (_Photo by
Henry B. Collins._)]
[Illustration: Figure 161
ESKIMO WOMAN SPLITTING WALRUS HIDE to make umiak cover, St. Lawrence
Island, Alaska, 1930. (_Photo by Henry B. Collins._)]
The fundamental difference between the construction of the curragh and
that of the umiak lies in the type of longitudinal strength members and
the transverse framing used. The curragh, like the birch-bark canoe,
depended entirely upon its gunwales for longitudinal strength, whereas
the umiak has a strong keel, or, properly, a keelson since the keel was
inside the skin cover. The curragh used longitudinal battens to support
the skin cover. The umiak, on the other hand, has in its chine timbers
rather strong longitudinal members that give additional strength to
the bottom. Its transverse frames, unlike those of the curragh which
were continuous from gunwale to gunwale, are in three sections, two
side pieces and a floor, or bottom, member and the frame members are
joined to gunwale, chines and keelson by lashings of sinew, whalebone,
or hide, a method that, together with three-part frames, gives great
flexibility to the framework. The frame of the early curragh may have
been lashed, but because of the other fundamental differences in design
and construction it was less flexible than that of the umiak.
The basic features of the umiak frame are not found in the kayak, the
structure of which in most types approaches that of the curragh. The
gunwale is the strength member in the kayak, and some types have a
rather extensive longitudinal batten system as well. In only a few
types of kayak is the keelson an important strength member, and even
here the gunwales are of primary importance. The hypothesis has been
offered that this indicates a different parentage for the kayak than
for the umiak, and that the umiak represents the earlier type, it being
argued that this type of boat was the one more required in migratory
periods, and so would be first developed. Such theories should be
accepted with caution, however, as the fundamentally different use
requirements for the two types of craft might readily explain the
variation in their principles of construction. Hunting would also have
been necessary during migrations, as existence depended upon food;
the earlier appearance of the umiak cannot be assumed on such limited
grounds.
[Illustration: Figure 162
FITTING SPLIT WALRUS-HIDE COVER to umiak at St. Lawrence Island,
Alaska, 1930. (_Photo by Henry B. Collins._)]
[Illustration: Figure 163
OUTBOARD MOTOR INSTALLED ON UMIAK, Cape Prince of Wales, Alaska, 1936.
(_Photo by Henry B. Collins._)]
[Illustration: Figure 164
LAUNCHING UMIAK IN LIGHT SURF, with crew of 12 men. (Note outboard
motor attached), Cape Prince of Wales, Alaska, 1936. (_Photo by Henry
B. Collins._)]
Eskimo skin boats possess remarkable advantages for their employment
and conditions of use. Their hulls are light in weight, simple to
build, and relatively easy to repair, yet they are highly shock
resistant. They can carry large loads, yet are fast, they are capable
of being propelled by more than one means, and they are exceptionally
seaworthy.
Floating ice is considered a major hazard to craft of all sizes, but
the umiak, for example, can resist the shocks of ramming the ice to a
degree beyond the tensile strength of the skin covering, by reason of
the method of attaching the skin cover to the framework of the hull,
and to some extent the form of the boat itself. The skin cover of the
umiak is not rigidly attached to the frame in a number of places, but
rather is a complete unit secured only at the gunwales and to the heads
of stem and stern. This permits the skin cover to be greatly distorted
by a blow, so that the elasticity of the material at point of impact is
assisted by the movement of the whole skin cover on the frame. Also,
the frame itself is flexible and allows distortion and recovery not
only within the limits of the elasticity of the wooden frame but also
by the movement of the lashed joints in the transverse frames. Some
kayaks have similar characteristics, though their small size and the
light weight of both boat and loading make its resistance to shock of
far less importance than that of the umiak.
Light weight is a highly desirable characteristic for small craft in
the Arctic, since it permits the boat without the aid of skids or
other mechanical contrivances to be removed from the water and carried
over obstructions, and to be transported either by sledge or by manual
portage over long distances. Lightness is obtained in the Eskimo skin
boats by the small number and small size of the wooden structural
members used in their construction. The resulting light weight hull
permits heavy loading in proportion to the size of the boat, and it
allows building with a minimum of material, in a country where such
materials as wood are scarce and hard to obtain.
For all small craft in Arctic waters, where distances between sources
of supply may be great and the time that the water is open to
navigation is relatively short, speed is an important and desirable
attribute that permits movement with a minimum of effort. The
exigencies of Arctic travel make it further desirable that small craft
be capable of propulsion under paddle, oars, sail, or low-powered
gasoline motors. The umiak, because of its form and weight, can be
modified to meet this requirement without loss of other desirable
attributes, and to a slightly lesser degree, the same may be said of
the kayak.
Simplicity in construction and repair are also basic requirements in
the Arctic, where an emergency may make it necessary to repair or
rebuild a damaged boat out of materials available nearby with the
minimum of tools and under adverse weather conditions. The Eskimo
has produced a boat construction that, as will be seen from the
descriptions that follow, to a high degree meets this requirement.
Exceptional seaworthiness is required, as most Arctic waters are
subject to violent storms; the Arctic skin boats have been developed
with forms and proportions to meet this condition. In this matter, the
light and flexible hull structure gives a special advantage. The kayak,
in its highest state of evolution and in skillful hands is perhaps
the most seaworthy of all primitive small craft. The umiak is a close
second, but of the two, the kayak is safer under all conditions of
Arctic travel.
The load-carrying capacity of skin boats has been mentioned. The Eskimo
umiak is notable in this respect, exceeding the curragh and even craft
produced by modern civilization. The umiak possesses this advantage
because of its very light hull weight in combination with a nearly
flat bottom and flaring sides. The resulting hull-form allows heavy
loading with relatively little increase in draft, as the flaring sides
cause the displacement to increase rapidly with the slightest increase
in draft. Though a similar form exists in the lumberman's drive boat,
the greater hull weight of this type makes it inferior to the umiak.
Light draft when loaded has very definite advantages in the Arctic,
for it allows loading and unloading on the beach or afloat, and allows
the boat to be beached at points where this would not be possible with
a deeper hull. The light draft also makes the umiak easy to propel
manually.
The imperative need for very efficient watercraft has made the Eskimo
seek improvements, and as his needs altered, so have his skin boats.
Consequently the designs of these craft have gone through numerous
changes since the first of the types were placed in American museums.
It is noticeable that, among other changes, the amount of freeboard of
umiaks has been altered as their owners met new conditions imposed by
longer voyages, heavier cargo, and the outboard motor. The high-sided
umiak, while suited for heavy loads and very seaworthy, was almost
impossible to paddle or even row against a strong gale. When this
condition had to be met, the freeboard and flare were reduced to
minimize the windage. In recent years umiaks have appeared with round
bottoms to give greater speed under paddle, the resulting boat being
an enlarged kayak in construction. These changes to meet differing use
requirements are not necessarily basic improvements, for they result in
the sacrifice of some of the other qualities of the type. Nevertheless,
they indicate the fluid state of primitive boat design in the Arctic,
a condition that has been accentuated in most areas by the increasing
influence of white men, their boats and their motors.
[Illustration: Figure 165
UMIAKS ON RACKS, in front of village on Little Diomede Island, July 30,
1936. (_Photo by Henry B. Collins._)]
_The Umiak_
The umiak was undoubtedly more widely employed by the Eskimo before
the coming of the white man than existing records indicate. It was
a type of boat most necessary for family migration by sea, and with
it the early Eskimos could establish themselves on islands far from
the mainland and could cross large bodies of water. From some areas
where early explorers mention having seen the type, the umiak has
disappeared; this suggests the possibility that tribes now unacquainted
with the umiak had at some time in the past reached a location where
such a boat was no longer necessary.
The umiak was common in open waters and was found from Kodiak Island
through the Aleutians and north and eastward along the west and north
coast of Alaska to the mouth of the Mackenzie River. On the Siberian
coast, opposite Alaska and for a short distance westward, the umiak was
also employed. From the Mackenzie eastward to Hudson Bay the umiak has
not been employed in recent times, though it is highly probable that it
was used in the migrations that populated this part of the Arctic coast
with Eskimo. Early explorers found umiaks in use along the northwestern
coast of Hudson Bay and Foxe Basin; the umiak disappeared from these
areas during the last century, but its use continued in Hudson Strait
and in Greenland, where it became highly developed.
Among the various tribes of Eskimo known to have employed the umiak
in the last century, the form of the hull varied a good deal, as
did its dimensions. In general its form was something like that of
the lumberman's "drive boat," except that most umiaks had a slight
~V~-bottom and were quite different from it in the shape of the
bow and stern. The size of the umiak does not seem to have been
established by a set of measurements as distinct as that used in the
building of kayaks, but rather as the result of utilizing material
available locally, with due regard to the intended use of the craft for
relatively heavy transport. Such matters as the flare of the sides,
rake and shape of bow and stern, and width varied from tribe to tribe.
The Asiatic and Alaskan umiaks were usually rather sharp-ended, with
little spread to the gunwales at bow and stern; one of the Asiatic
types has the gunwales brought round in a full curve at the ends of the
boat. In the East the umiaks have rather upright bows and sterns and
the gunwales are often rather wide apart to form square ends to the
hull. Some of the western umiaks were navigated with paddles only; with
others, before the appearance of the Russians in the area, both oar and
sail may have been used. In the East the umiaks were being paddled,
rowed, and sailed when white men reached the Arctic in the 17th century.
The Greenland umiak frame is much heavier and more rigid than the
Alaskan. In comparing eastern and western umiaks the frame of the
eastern umiak seems to be somewhat better finished, but the models
of the western umiak are undoubtedly the better. The eastern umiak
is not intended for use in hunting but is primarily a cargo carrier;
its use has been confined to women and its chief employment is moving
the family and household effects from one hunting ground to another.
While it is highly probable that this condition is the result of the
disappearance of whaling in this region, the use of the umiak as a
hunting boat ceased so long ago that the eastern umiak model may have
degenerated to a great degree. It has been otherwise in the western
Arctic where the use of the umiak in hunting has continued and the
boats have been managed, to a very great extent, by the men. As a
result, the boats are held in greater respect by their builders and
the better models have survived. The tribal distinctions between the
western umiaks are therefore more marked than in the east; including
Siberia, at least three basic models and a very large variety of tribal
variations, are to be found, as can be proved by existing models. In
the east only two basic and distinct umiak models are known to have
existed, the Baffin Island type used on both the north side and on the
Labrador side of Hudson Strait, and the Greenland type. In the latter,
there were slight tribal distinctions it is true, but these were minor.
The Asiatic umiaks may be classed into two types, the Koryak type of
Eastern Siberia and the Chukchi model of the Siberian side of Bering
Strait. The Koryak umiaks illustrated by Jochelson show a highly
developed boat, rather lightly framed compared to boats on the American
side. In profile the bow has a long raking curve and the stern much
less; as a result the bottom is rather short compared to the length
over the gunwales. Viewed in plan, the gunwales are rounded in at bow
and stern to form almost a semicircle. At the bow the gunwales are bent
around a horizontal headboard tenoned over the stem head but at the
stern there is no headboard. The sheer is moderate and very graceful.
The flare of the sides is great and there appears to be a little ~V~
in the bottom transversely. There is also a slight fore-and-aft rocker
in the bottom. The construction is similar to that of the Alaskan
umiaks except that the Koryak umiaks have double-chine stringers and
also a double riser, or longitudinal stringer, halfway up the sides.
The riser is not backed with a continuous stringer, as is the chine;
instead three short rods are lashed inside the side frame members. The
side stringers do not reach bow and stern. The four thwarts are located
well aft, and between the first and second thwarts is a larger space
than between the others, for cargo. The boats are rowed, two oarsmen
to a thwart. The cover was formerly walrus hides split and scraped
thin but more recently the skin of the bearded seal has come into use.
A rectangular sail of deer skin is sometimes lashed to a yard and set
on a tripod mast about amidships. Two legs of the mast are secured to
the gunwale on one side, the remaining leg is lashed to the opposite
gunwale. Judging by the drawing made by Jochelson[3] this umiak is
perhaps the most graceful of all those known today.
[3] Reproduced in JAMES HORNELL, _Water Transport_ (Cambridge:
University Press, 1946), p. 160.
[Illustration: Figure 166
UMIAK COVERED WITH SPLIT WALRUS HIDE, Cape Prince of Wales, Alaska. The
framework can be seen through the translucent hide cover. (_Photo by
Henry B. Collins._)]
The Asiatic Chukchi umiak is somewhat similar to that used on the
American coast but with less beam in proportion to its length and less
flare to the sides. The skin cover is of bearded seal. Bogoras measured
an example and found her 35 feet 9 inches long, 4 feet 6 inches wide
amidships, 2 feet 6 inches wide on the bottom over the chines. (An
Alaskan umiak measured 34 feet 9 inches long, 8 feet 2 inches wide at
gunwales and 2 feet 8 inches over the chines.) The Chukchi also use a
very small hunting umiak, 15 to 18 feet long and having two or three
thwarts, much like the small hunting umiaks once used in the Aleutians.
The larger Chukchi umiaks have rectangular sails set on a pole mast;
some boats carry a square topsail. The sails are lashed to their yards
and the lower sail, or "course," is controlled by sheets and braces.
The topsail, when used, has braces only. The sails were formerly of
reindeer skins, but now drill is used. These umiaks were formerly
paddled, as indicated by their narrow beam, but since the advent of the
white man oars have come into use, and it is quite certain that the
topsail also is the result of white man's influence, if not the whole
rig.
In stormy weather some of these umiaks and also some of those in
Alaska employ weather cloths, 18 or 20 inches high above the gunwales,
raised on short stanchions lashed to the hull frames. The ends of the
stanchions are inserted in slits in the top of the weather cloth, and
in fair weather the cloths are folded down inside the gunwale out of
the way. Also in some of these Asiatic and Alaskan umiaks, inflated
floats, of seal skin, are lashed to the gunwales to prevent capsizing
in a heavy sea.
The Alaskan umiaks varied much in size but are rather similar in form.
The small hunting umiaks used by the Aleuts are about 18 feet long,
while the large cargo carrying umiaks range up to about 40 feet long,
so far as available records show. They are marked by heavily flared
sides and often have a rather strong sheer; a few, however, are rather
straight on the gunwales. Nearly all existing models and boats were
built since 1880; and no information is now available on the forms and
dimensions of earlier craft.
On page 184 is a drawing of a small umiak, used in walrus hunting, from
the Alaskan coast in the neighborhood of the Aleutians. In the U.S.
National Museum are the remains of a similar boat obtained in 1888 from
Northern Alaska. This type of small umiak is also employed in fishing
and is rather widely used as a passage boat for short voyages along
shore. These craft, propelled by paddles, are primarily fast, handy
hunting canoes rather than boats for migration or cargo-carrying. For
this reason they are quite sharp-ended and shallow. The construction of
this example will serve to illustrate the methods common to this type.
The umiak shown is 20 feet 8½ inches over the headboards, 4 feet 9½
inches extreme beam and 17⅜ inches depth--apparently an average-sized
boat of her class. The width of the bottom over the chine members
is 2 feet 7 inches. The keelson is rectangular in section and in two
pieces, hooked-scarphed together; each piece is shaped out of the
trunk of a small tree with the root knees employed to form the bow and
stern posts. The floor timbers are quite heavy and support the chine
members by having the floor ends tenoned into the chine pieces. At bow
and stern the chines are joined to the keelson in a notched scarph; at
these places the keelson is sided rather wide to give good bearing. It
is evident that this portion of the boat's structure is the first built
and forms a rigid bottom to the hull. The floor timbers are lashed to
the keelson by lacings of sinew, whalebone, or hide, passed through
holes bored in both, as indicated in the plan. The ends of the floors
are pegged where they tenon into the chines and the ends of the chines
are pegged to the keelson, but this was evidently not a universal
practice, as there are models showing lashings at floor ends and at
chine ends. The headboards are carved out of blocks in a ~T~-shape and
are stepped on top of the stem and stern posts and lashed. The fit is
extremely accurate. The bow headboard is narrower athwartship than the
stern headboard. The detail of the hook scarph in the drawing shows a
method of lashing that is widely used.
[Illustration: Figure 167
SMALL UMIAK FOR WALRUS HUNTING, west coast of Alaska, 1888-89.
Reconstructed from damaged umiak formerly in U.S. National Museum, and
from models.]
Because of the manner in which the keelson is cambered and the floor
fitted, the bottom of the covered hull shows in cross section a slight
~V~, reducing toward the bow and stern, that is typical of the Alaskan
umiak. The amount of deadrise seems to have been determined by the
manner of fitting the floor timbers and it helps the boat to run
straight under paddle and oars. In present day umiaks the amount of
~V~ in the bottom is slight; too much would make the boat difficult to
sledge overland without employing chocks to steady the hull. Perhaps in
the past, where sledging was not required, the deadrise was greater, as
indicated by some old models.
After the chines and floor are fitted to the keelson, the frames at
the thwarts are made and set up at the desired flare and height, being
held in place by temporary spreaders lashed or braced. These are
sometimes stiffened by thongs from frame head to keelson at each pair,
to steady the frame while the gunwale is being bent. As the lengths of
the thwarts are controlled by the fairing of the gunwales, the thwarts
are not fitted until after the latter are in place. As shown in the
figure above, the gunwales are round poles, slightly flattened on the
lower side at the headboards, where they are secured by lashings. In
building, the gunwales are shaped and secured by lashing them to those
side frames selected to shape the hull. The lashings that secure the
side frames to both gunwale and chine are passed through holes in each
member and are hove taut by means of a short lever with a hole bored
in it to take the end of the lashing, which is also wrapped around the
lever to give temporary purchase. The side frames have saddle notches
to bear on the chine and gunwale. All lashings in the frame, it will be
noted, pass through holes bored in the members and in some cases the
lashings are let in, so that the sinew is flush with the surfaces of
the members, to prevent the lashing from being damaged by chafing.
[Illustration: Figure 168
UMIAKS NEAR CAPE PRINCE OF WALES, ALASKA, showing walrus-hide cover
and lacing. Frame lashings are walrus-hide thongs. (_Photo by Henry B.
Collins._)]
With the gunwales faired, the remaining frames are then put in position
and lashed to the gunwales and chines. An outside batten is run along
each side and lashed by turns of sinew over the batten and around the
side frames, with the lashings let into each member to prevent slipping
and chafing. The batten is lashed at bow and stern in some umiaks, but
in many it is stopped just short of coming home on the posts. Next, the
short frames at bow and stern are put in place and the risers secured
inside the side frames, then, with the thwarts fitted and lashed to
the risers, and the ends of the gunwales are lashed together at bow
and stern, the boat is ready to be covered. When ready to cover, the
frame is stiffened by diagonal thong ties, each of which has one end
secured by turns around the gunwale, with the other end passed through
holes in the keelson and secured. These are commonly found in western
umiaks; the small umiak has but one pair placed amidships. The timber
used in such craft is fir, spruce, and willow, and is usually driftwood
obtained at river-mouth.