Smell Uw.ak for Walrus Hunfm 





Small Umiak for Walrus Hunting, west coast of Alaska, 1888-89. Recon- 

 structed from damaged umiak formerly in U.S. National Museum, and from 

 models. 



members is 2 feet 7 inches. The keelson is rectangular 

 in section and in two pieces, hooked-scarphed to- 

 gether; 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 athwart- 

 ship 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, reduc- 

 ing 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 lash- 



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