Development of the kayak

About 5,000 years ago Paleo-Eskimos came from the Bering Strait to the Arctic coast of Alaska and then into the Northwest Territories (see Native Americans: The Arctic). A second wave of Paleo-Eskimos, known as the Dorset culture, appeared around 3,000 years ago. These people eventually reached the Labrador coast and occupied the coastal areas of Newfoundland. These marine hunters had the technology to live in an arctic environment. About 1,000 years ago, the Thule people migrated from the Bering Strait eastward along the Arctic coast. Within 500 years the Thule people displaced the Dorset people. The Thule people originated in the coastal area of Alaska, where they developed a sophisticated marine technology, including the kayak (a small, enclosed canoe-shaped vessel designed for hunting seals and other sea mammals), the umiak (a larger boat suitable for hunting bowhead whales), and a harpoon with floats. These developments enabled the Thule to hunt sea mammals on the open water. The Thule were the ancestors of the Inuit.

Skin and Bark Boats

The earliest known boats were constructed from a frame of animal bone or light wood covered by animal skins or bark. Historians believe people used such boats as early as 16,000 BC. Several thousand years later, round skin boats, called coracles, were developed in Asia, Africa, the British Isles, and the plains of North America. Coracles have been built in Ireland in fairly recent times. They typically have a framework of woven willow shoots or other soft wood suitable for basketmaking.

Another type of skin boat is the kayak, a type of canoe created by the Inuit. The kayak is completely enclosed with animal skins stretched over a rigid frame, except for an open cockpit in the center, where the paddler sits armed with a double-bladed paddle. The kayak is wide at the center and tapers to points at both bow and stern. Kayaks in use today have much the same shape that kayaks had centuries ago, although modern kayaks may be molded from plastic, fiberglass, or Kevlar (a synthetic fiber originally developed to replace the steel in radial tires).

Bark-covered boats came into use about the same time that skin-covered boats did. They typically had a light wood frame with a bark covering made of pieces sewn together with root fiber. The frame was separated from the bark covering by a plank sheathing. Gunwales, or side edges, ran from bow to stern and provided longitudinal strength to the frame. The sheathing was held in place by forcing the ribs of the frame under the gunwales. Birchbark canoes up to 14 m (46 ft) long are known to have been built in North America. Modern canoes still have the basic shape and design of their predecessors, but they are usually molded from aluminum, plastic, fiberglass, or other lightweight, durable material.

Canoes

The Inuit created two kinds of canoes, both of which had whalebone or wooden frames and were covered with animal skins, generally those from whales or seals. The kayak, a boat used only by the male Inuit, is completely enclosed except for an opening for the occupant. The umiak, used only by the female, is open. The canoe of Greenland and Hudson Strait is flat bottomed and flat sided.

from: "Boats and Boatbuilding," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2000 http://encarta.msn.com © 1997-2000 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

from: "Canoe," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2000 http://encarta.msn.com © 1997-2000 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.