Inuit Kayaks

December 2002 - January 2003

This is an article from WaveLength Magazine, available in print in North America and globally on the web.
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by Lyn Hancock

Sam inspects a bone and steel-tipped spear carried on deck of the qajak which sits on its winter rock supports.

In the old days, when an Inuk hunted seals or caribou by kayak (spelled qajak now), he got out of the vessel by walking over the bow, stepping lightly on a concealed crossbar. If he stepped on any other place, he would break through the stretched caribou skins seamed with caribou fat that covered the willow branch thwarts.

Sam, dressed in caribou skin clothing, paddles near Bathurst Inlet Lodge in the central Arctic.

When I study the qajaks made today by my Inuit friends in Nunavut or Northwest Territories - caribou-skinned with caribou sinew rope and string, caribou vertebrae bungy cords and scrounged spruce paddles - I am amazed at their apparent fragility and tippiness. It makes me thankful for my roto-molded plastic Current Designs kayak.

In the old days there wasn't much variety in building materials on the arctic tundra - just animals, willows, driftwood if you were lucky, and unlimited numbers of heavy, lichen-encrusted rocks.

On my visit last year to Treeline Lodge, Sam Kapolak showed me how the Inuit fashioned frames in the late autumn to hold their qajaks over the winter. Traditionally, the qayaks would sit in these stone holding frames from the finish of their fall caribou hunts until the beginning of summer when the qajaks were repaired and renewed with fresh caribou skins.

Closeup of cockpit showing willow ribs, sinew string, caribou skin covering,bone frame cockpit rim, and spruce paddle.

It didn't take long for Sam and his other guiding buddy, Ben Ogigon, to choose four flattish rocks, stabilize them into position with other rocks, and place them as Vshaped end supports. Then they set one of Bobby's qajaks, which usually hangs from the ceiling in Treeline Lodge's meeting room, onto the stone qajak frame.

My Inuit friends are happy to show me how they did things in the old days and patiently pose for my cameras, but they stick to their outboard motors and skidoos for seal or caribou hunting when I am not around.

Ironically, when I return to Nanoose Bay on Vancouver Island, I take down my kayak from its wood and steel cradle on the side of my house and set off on a seal hunt of my own. I need the craft of their ancestors to creep up to my quarry with my camera.

© Text and photos by Lyn Hancock, a freelance writer living in Nanoose Bay, BC.