Genuine Eskimo Kayak For Sale

Bob Hoerger of Palo Alto brought the following ad from the November 1940 issue of Pacific Motorboat to my attention:

FOR SALE: Genuine Eskimo kayak with skin cover, recently brought from Alaska. Well constructed. Balances easily. Good for fishing and sport on river, lake, or bay. M. Lantis, Berkeley, Calif.

Some of you may recognize M. Lantis as the woman who collected the baidarka in the collection of the museum of anthropology at the University of California in Berkeley. Whether this was another kayak or the one that is now in the museum is not known. This ad was placed in 1940 and the boat in the museum was collected in 1934 and is lacking its skin. But who knows. M. Lantis may have tried to sell the boat, not found a buyer, stripped off its skin and then donated it to the museum.