Capt. Lyon’s description of the round-bottomed kaiak used at Fury and Hecla Straits (Journal, p. 233) is much more explicit. He describes the frame as consisting of a gunwale on each side 4 or 5 inches wide in the middle and three-fourths inch thick, tapering at each end, sixty-four hoop-shaped ribs (on a canoe 25 feet long), seven slight rods outside of the ribs, twenty-two deck-beams, and a batten running fore and aft, and a hoop round the cockpit. These large kaiaks weigh 50 or 60 pounds. There is a very good figure of the Point Barrow kaiak, paddled with a single paddle, in Smyth’s view of Nuwŭk (Beechey’s Voyage, pl. opposite p. 307).
[440]. Wrangell, Narrative of an Expedition, etc., p. 161, footnote.
[441]. For example: “For they think it unbecoming a man to row such a boat, unless great necessity requires it.” Egede, Greenland, p. 111. “It would be a scandal for a man to meddle, except the greatest necessity compels him to lend a hand.” Crantz, vol. 1, p. 149.
[442]. Part of the description of the umiak frame is taken from the model (No. 56563 [225]), as the writer not only had few opportunities for careful examination of these canoes, but unfortunately did not realize at the time the importance of detail.
[443]. History of Greenland, vol. 1, p. 148, and pl. vi.
[444]. Vol. 1, p. 167.
[445]. See Kotzebue’s Voyage, etc., vol. 1, p. 216.
[446]. This is also the custom among the Central Eskimo. (See Boas “Central Eskimo,” p. 528, Fig. 481.)
[447]. Narrative, p. 148.
[448]. Journal, p. 30. Compare also Chappell, “Hudson Bay,” p. 57.