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 north- 

 western 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 1 7th 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 hunt- 

 ing 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; in- 

 cluding 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 cf 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 com- 

 pared 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 gun- 

 wales 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* this umiak is perhaps 

 the most graceful of all those known today. 



*Reproduced in James Hornell, Water Transport (Car 

 bridge: University Press, 1946), p. 160. 



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