FISHING VESSELS AND BOATS OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 
25 
or exhaustive treatise on the peculiarities of the various forms. The subject is an 
interesting one and, from an ethnological point of view, deserves the fullest consider- 
ation. At another time the writer hopes to do it justice; but here nothing will be 
attempted beyond a description of the more important types, as illustrative of the skin 
boats employed in the Alaskan fisheries. 
At Kadiak, throughout the Aleutian Islands, and thence northwardly along the 
mainland coast, the kaiak or bidarka is extensively used, and in most parts of this region 
the natives could not support life without it. Indeed, in some localities of the north 
the ability to build a kaiak marks an important point in the life of the coast native. 
Petroff says : 
The youth as soon as he is able to build a kaiak and to support himself, no longer observes any 
family ties, but goes where his fancy takes him, frequently roaming about with his kaiak for thousands 
of miles before another fancy calls him to take a wife, to excavate a miserable dwelling, and to settle 
down for a time. * 
In some sections of Alaska kaiaks with only a single manhole are exclusively used, 
but along the greater part of the coast, and especially in the Aleutian group, bidarkas 
with two or three manholes are common, although even there, smaller ones, made to 
carry only a single occupant, are found. It is probable that the true kaiak — the 
smaller canoe with a single hole — was the original form of the covered skin boat, and 
some authorities say that this is in accordance with a tradition of the natives of Attu, 
the westernmost island of the Aleutian Chain. 
The larger boats of this class, having two or three manholes — those to which the 
name bidarka is most properly applied and which are in most common use for commer- 
cial fishing — were invented by the .Russians, according to some excellent authorities, 
who, after their occupation of trading posts in Alaska, built, or induced the natives to 
build, these larger skin canoes that they might carry more men. But they were not 
able to otherwise improve upon the kaiak in construction or model. Indeed, the 
Russians esteemed these skin boats so highly that they at once adopted them to the 
exclusion of all others for navigating those waters;! and they appear to have taken 
them further south, when they established trading posts in California, where their use 
is mentioned by Wilkes.J 
Turner, who has given much attention to the history of the skin boats of Alaska, 
believes that only single-hole kaiaks were made by the natives previous to the advent 
of white men. He says there was no occasion for the larger canoes, or bidarkas, which 
the demand for sea-otter skins and the necessity for traders to make long journeys by 
water, with native boatmen, called into existence. But opinions differ on this subject, 
and we can give here only some of these, and thus open up the question for discussion 
by those who, from experience and observation, are best fitted to furnish the facts. 
Elliott, whose study of Alaska entitles his opinions to much respect, thinks that 
long before Alaska was visited by the Russians the Aleuts built and used kaiaks with 
two holes at least. He bases this opinion on the fact that these natives have always 
engaged in sea-otter hunting and in whaling, and for these enterprises it is essential to 
have a canoe which will carry two men. This, he believes, will be easily understood, and 
* Alaska, volume 8, Tenth Census, by Ivan Petroff, page 135. 
t Bancroft’s “Native Eaces of the Pacific States," i, 61. 
t “Narrative of the U. S. Exploring Expedition,” 1838 to 1842, by Commander Wilkes 
