328 THE POINT BARROW ESKIMO. 
MEANS OF LOCOMOTION AND TRANSPORTATION, 
TRAVELING BY WATER. 
Kaiaks and paddles.—Like all the rest of the Eskimo race, the natives 
of Point Barrow use the kaiak, or narrow, light, skin-coyered canoe, 
completely decked over except at the middle, where there is a hole or 
cockpit in which the man sits. Although nearly every male above the 
age of boyhood owns and can manage one of these canoes, they are much 
less generally employed than by any other Eskimo whose habits have 
been described, except the ‘Arctic highlanders,” who have no boats, 
and perhaps those of Siberia and their Chuckche companions. The 
kaiak is used only during the season of open water, and then but little 
in the sea in the neighborhood of the villages. Those who remain near 
the villages in the summer use the kaiak chiefly for making the short 
excursions to the lakes and streams inland, already described, after 
reindeer, and for making short trips from camp to camp along the coast. 
At Pernyt they are used in setting the stake-nets and also for retriev- 
ing fowl which have fallen in the water when shot. 
According to Dr, Simpson! the men of the parties which go east in 
the summer travel in their kaiaks after reaching the open water “to 
make room in the large boat for the oil-skins.” We obtained no infor- 
mation regarding this. Itis at this time, probably, that the kaiak comes 
specially in play for spearing molting fowl and “flappers”, and for eatch- 
ing seals with the kikiga. They manage the kaiak with great skill and 
contidence, but we never knew them to go out in rough weather, nor 
did we ever see the practice, so frequently described elsewhere, of tying 
the skirts of the waterproof jacket round the coaming of the cockpit so 
as to exclude the water. 
It should, however, be borne in mind that from the reasons above 
stated our opportunities for observing the use of the kaiak were very 
limited. At all events it is certain that the people depend mainly on 
the umiak, not only for traveling, but for hunting and fishing as well, 
which places them in strong contrast with the Greenlanders, who are 
essentially a race of kaiakers and have consequently developed the boat 
and its appendages to a high state of perfection. 
We brought home one complete full-sized kaiak, with its paddle, No. 
57773 [539], Fig. 38a and b, whichis a very fair representative of the 
sanoes used at Point Barrow. This is 19 feet long and 18 inches wide 
amidships. The gunwales are straight, except for a very slight sheer at 
the bow, and the cockpit is 21 inches long and 184 inches wide. It has 
a frame of wood, which appears to be all of spruce, held together by 
treenails and whalebone lashings, and is covered with white-tanned seal- 
skins with the grain side out. The stoutest part of the frame is the two 
gunwales, each 34 inches broad and $-inch thick, flat, and rounded off on 
the upper edge inside, running the whole length of the boat and meet- 
1 Op. cit. p. 264. 
