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Chapter Seven
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]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

When this umiak was examined, the skin cover was in such a condition that the number of hides used could not be determined, but it probably is comprised of three sea-lion skins sewn together. New skin covers are made by removing the hair and fat from the skins and then sewing them together by the method illustrated on page 186, to obtain proper dimensions. Green skins are generally preferred, since they stretch into shape better than partly or wholly cured ones. Once stretched to shape and cured, the cover can be readily removed and replaced, without resewing. In fitting a new skin cover the skins are first thoroughly soaked in seawater. The cover is then stretched over the frame and worked taut by lacings. It is wide enough to reach from gunwale to gunwale and a little down inside the boat on each side, and is laced to the rising batten with turns of rope spaced 3 to 5 inches apart amidships and closer together in the ends of the hull. At the headboards the cover is laced around the gunwales and through holes in the headboards, two independent lacings of two turns each being used on each side. At the extreme bow and stern the cover is laced to the gunwale lashings. Where the cover will not stretch smooth in fitting, gores appear to have been cut out and the skin resewn. After being laced, the cover is allowed to shrink until it becomes smooth and tight, then it is heavily oiled and the seams rubbed with tallow or blubber. This treatment is repeated at regular intervals. While the boat is in service care is taken to dry out the skin cover once a day, if possible.

The sequence of construction described is not followed universally; sometimes spreaders are fixed between the gunwales, which are then sheered by thongs to the keelson, after which the side frames are put in and the side and rising battens, and finally the thwarts, are added. Judging by the numerous models seen, the small hunting umiaks varied a good deal in the rake and sweep of the bow and stern, even in the same village. These hunting umiaks worked with kayaks in Aleutian walrus and sea-lion hunting; a practice that seems to have once been common along the Western Alaskan coast and among the islands.

The drawing on page 186 represents a large Alaskan umiak from King Island. Two boats of this model, but with modern metal fastenings, are in the Mariners' Museum, Newport News, Virginia, but the drawing shows the methods of fastenings used in 1886. The plan is of a burdensome model, such as is used for travel or other heavy cargo work. The boat is 34 feet 2½ inches over the gunwales, 8 feet ½ inch extreme beam, 2 feet 3⅜ inches deep and 2 feet 10 inches beam on the bottom over the chines. The construction follows the general plan of the small umiak just described, except that another method of fitting the floor timbers to the chines is employed. Due to the size and use of the umiak, two side battens are employed with a single riser. The thwarts are not notched over the frames, but instead fall between them. As diagonal thong braces from gunwale to keelson would be ineffective in this situation, two sets of wooden braces that resist not only tension but also compression are used to take the thrust off the thwart lashings. These brace-frames are staggered slightly to allow room to fit them at the keelson. The drawing, which requires no additional explanation, shows the plan of construction and the important lashings, and the method of fitting oars with thong thole loops.

Boats such as these carried a square sail lashed to a yard, the mast being stepped in a block on the keelson. No mast thwart is used; instead stays and shrouds of hide rope supported the mast, a method that made it easy to step or unstep the mast in a seaway. Early umiaks in this area are said to have had mat sails; later ones used sails of skin and drill. Modern umiaks of this class often have rudders hung on iron pintles and gudgeons and the floors fastened to the keelson with iron bolts or screws. The scarphs are also bolted, but the remaining fastenings are lashings in the old style, to obtain flexibility in the frame.

A North Alaskan whaling umiak, supposed to have been built about 1890, is represented in the drawing of figure 171. The remains of the boat were sufficient to permit reconstruction of the frame. This umiak is about the size of, and in profile greatly resembles, a New Bedford whaleboat. However, the model is that of the umiak, rather sharp-ended and strongly sheered. The boat is 29 feet 4¾ inches over the headboards, 5 feet 10½ inches extreme beam, and 2 feet 1¾ inches deep. Umiaks of this model were used at Point Barrow and vicinity in offshore whaling, and were also used for travel and cargo carrying. Paddles were used in whaling, but in more recent times sail, oars, and outboard engines have been employed. The boats of this class appear to have been marked by a very graceful profile and strongly raking ends. Despite the resemblances of this type of umiak to the whaleboat, it is highly doubtful that its model was influenced by the white man's boat. In fact, it might just as well be claimed that since the whaleboat appears to have been first employed in the early Greenland whale fishery, the latter had been influenced by the umiaks found in that area. However, one might also point to the fact that the model of the early European whaleboat is much like that of a Viking boat, from which will be seen the danger in accepting chance similarities in form or detail as evidence of relationship, particularly when it is not impossible that similarities in use and other requirements have produced similar boat types, the users never having come into contact.

The whaling umiak has been much used in the western Arctic by explorers and Arctic travellers, who regarded highly its lightness and strength, and its ability to be easily driven. It is much wider than the Chukchi umiak and has far more flare. From a study of models and numerous photographs it can be said that the amount of fore-and-aft camber in the bottom varies greatly between individual umiaks, some of which are almost straight on the bottom. The light framework and elastic construction often cause these umiaks to camber a good deal when heavily loaded; when sledged, they are sometimes fitted amidships with a support for a line from bow to stern, that forms a "hogging-brace," to prevent the boat from losing its camber. It is also apparent that there is no standard practice in fitting floors to the chines; Murdock[4] shows a rough sketch that indicates the floor ends are often tenoned into the chines, as in the small umiak. Tree-nailing of the floors and chines, and the keelson, is common, and sometimes both treenails and lashings are used in scarphs. In some umiaks both the single side batten and the riser are at the same height, but only the riser has its ends secured to the posts, the side battens being cut short and their ends lashed to the riser a few inches inside the posts.