The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America

by Tappan Adney; Howard Irving Chapelle

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.

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.