The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America

by Tappan Adney; Howard Irving Chapelle

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.

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.