SPRING JOURNEY IN A SKIN BOAT 195 



This makes travel much less pleasant and much slower 

 than in winter. 



Of course, the same summer heat that makes overland 

 travel difficult makes boat travel possible, and the Eski- 

 mos take advantage of that. The spring is, therefore, 

 the time for making boats and putting boats in order. 

 In 1906-07 a good many of the Eskimos owned whale- 

 boats purchased from the ships. These boats are about 

 28 feet or 30 feet long, will carry a ton of freight and 

 sail beautifully, but they are fragile, difficult to keep in 

 repair and not very seaworthy when heavily loaded. The 

 big Eskimo skin-boat called umiak is for most purposes 

 far better. 



When the white whalers first came to the north coast 

 of Alaska they had great contempt for the driftwood on 

 the beaches and brought with them lumber which they 

 thought would be preferable for use in making the frames 

 of the Eskimo umiaks. At first the Eskimos were talked 

 into this, but they soon gave it up for they found that a 

 frame made of spruce was lighter and stronger for any 

 given dimension than a frame made of the commercial 

 lumber. Thus the Eskimos found out for themselves 

 what many white men never knew until the World War 

 came with its demand for spruce as framework for air- 

 planes. The same quality that makes spruce suitable for 

 airplane frames makes it suitable for the frames of the 

 umiaks. 



The standard size umiak is designed to be covered with 

 the skins of seven bearded seals and is from thirty to 

 thirty-five feet long. The boat is flat-bottomed, or roughly 

 dory shaped. 



The bearded seals (Erignathus barbatus) that furnish 

 skins for the covers weigh from six to eight hundred 



