FISHING VESSELS AND BOATS OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 
21 
The canoes used for whaling are the largest, ranging from 35 to 40 feet in length ; 
they usually carry a crew of 8 men. They are well supplied with harpoons, lances, 
whale-lines, etc. An important part of their equipment are the floats, made of inflated 
bladders of sea-lions, which are used as buoys and are attached to the whale lines 
after the whales are struck. A canoe of this kind complete is worth $250. 
The dugouts employed in the cod and halibut fisheries rank next in size to those 
used for whaling; they are mostly from 30 to 33 feet long and about 5 feet beam. The 
crew of a canoe is commonly from 4 to 5 persons; cost, about $50. Sealing canoes 
range from 20 to 22 feet in length; average 2£ feet beam; value $25 each. Salmon 
canoes about 10 feet long; 2| to 3 feet wide; operated by one man; average value $10. 
9. Dugout canoes of Alaska . — No people in the world are more dependent upon 
boats than are the' natives of southeastern Alaska. Living in a region where the coast 
line is broken into many channels, straits, and harbors by the numerous islands of the 
Sitkan Archipelago ; where the land offers little to reward the skill or perseverance of 
the hunter, and the supplies of food and other necessaries must be drawn from the 
sea, the possession of serviceable boats is of more than ordinary importance to the 
inhabitants. Well may Elliott say that “the one thing of joy, of delight, and of infinite 
use to the native of the Sitkan Archipelago is his canoe. Life, indeed, would be a sad 
problem for him were it not for this adjunct of his own creation. Upon its construc- 
tion he lavishes the best of his thought, the height of his manual skill, and his infinite 
patience. The result of this attention is to fashion from a single cedar log a little vessel 
which challenges our admiration invariably for its fine outline and its seaworthiness 
and strength.”* 
Fig. 2. Alaskan Dugout Canoe. 
The Indians of the Sitkan region, like many other savages, have shown much skill 
in modeling their canoes, and have apparently by intuition solved successfully the 
difficult problems of least resistance, buoyancy, and requisite stability — qualities essen- 
tially necessary in a working boat, but the proper combination of which has often put 
to the severest test the constructive skill of the most experienced white men. These 
natives have also shown the usual adaptation of means to ends characteristic of savages, 
and although the land fails in a large measure to supply their other wants, the timber 
with which it abounds has been well and skillfully utilized in the manufacture of their 
canoes. All the tribes or clans in the Sitkan Archipelago use dugout canoes, the size 
of which varies from 10 or 12 feet to upward pf 30 feet in length ; the usual length of a 
*“Our Arctic Province,” By Henry W. Elliott, page 62. 
