Andrew's boat

This year, Andrew Abyo built an Alutiiq kayak with us. He decided to take the urban kayak approach and go with the plastic ribs.

That's Wayne's hand in the picture. Wayne was helping out with both kayaks, the urban Aleut and the urban Alutiiq.


Here's Andrew demonstrating rib shape. A short piece of aluminum rod gives the flat center profile while the bilges stay round.


Andrew used some cable ties to hold the hull stringers to the ribs but also did some lashing with artificial sinew.

Here's a picture of the bow which we cut from plywood. The paper template is laying on the ground.


The cockpit rim was plastic as well. Here Andrew is pretend bending it with his teeth the way that people used to do with wood in the days when they lacked materials to make steam boxes.


The hull is stained the traditional red and Andrew is just putting on some finishing touches.


Last day. We almost finished the sewing except around the cockpit.


And a side view to show off the nose.


Looks like the head of an eagle, doesn't it?


And one final shot of Andrew in the dining hall of the APIA building.

The urban baidarka

This year at culture camp, we built an urban kayak. The idea for this boat was hatched by Mike Livingston. The premise was that a modern Aleut living in an apartment in Anchorage would not have access to a whole bunch of wood working tools but might still want to build a baidarka, an iqyax^. The challenge was to come up with a list of materials that we could pick up at a home supply store like Loew's or Home Depot and without the use of a table saw be able to turn those materials into a usable iqyax^. The other idea was that in spite of the use of non-customary materials, the resulting boat would still be recognizable as an iqyax^.

The biggest challenge for making the boat was to find a substitute for steam bending the oak ribs. We settled on flexible plastic water pipe. The pipe bent nicely but not in the shape we wanted. To get the flat mid section, we inserted length of quarter inch aluminum rod in the middle. Gunwales were twelve foot red cedar one by twos. The stringers, as you can see were aluminum rod, and the stringers were attached to the ribs with cable ties.
How plastic can you get.


I was skeptical about the chances of getting a decent hull shape, but as it turned out. I needn't have worried. The shape turned out fine. And as you can see above, once the skin was on, the boat looked just dandy, hard to tell that there was all that plastic inside. Never mind that the skin was made out of plastic fiber as well.


And here we are, sewing on the skin around the square cockpit. This was not meant to be an ocean boat but more something that anyone could step into and paddle without the hassle of squeezing into a small cockpit.
In case you're wondering, one of the kids appropriated some cutoff boat skin and turned it into a mask.


And everyone who worked on the boat signed the skin.

And here's the boat with the faux sea lion hide finish. Ready to launch.

Speed vs. Comfort

Lately, I have been building wider kayaks, both for reasons of comfort and for potential use in sailing. If you want to hang a sail off a boat, you want some stability and stability is achieved by making the boat wider. A wider boat is unfortunately a slower boat to paddle.
So the question is, where is the point of compromise?
Just how much speed do I want to trade off for stability. I ponder this question each time I haul a kayak down to the water.
Last night I paddled one of my skinny baidarkas. I was of course pleased by its speed but also considered that it was not a good beer drinking platform. But when I paddle one of my wide boats, I am pleased by the fact that I can lay back in it and if I wanted to, drink a beer. But then, running my usual circuit once around Alameda's Coast Guard Island, I find that I don't like the drop in speed.
Of course, speed is relative and perceptions can quickly change. If my speed drops from 4 mph to 3 mph, how big a deal is that? What if I just relax, paddle no harder than usual and just take a little extra time to run my circuit?
And here's another revelation. I like how my body feels after I paddle. I always knew that I felt better after I went out in my kayak, but I assumed that that was just something that came from being in a kayak. It is in part, but the largest part of the feelgood response is caused by the effort of paddling.
On summer afternoons, the wind blows from the west on SF bay, and the estuary where I paddle runs east-west and the wind blows straight down it. I have found that with a sail on my wide kayak, I can sail two miles up the estuary, even with the tide going out and then paddle back home. Great stuff for relaxing, but I have found that I miss the feelgood response that paddling produces.
Oh well. The search for the perfect compromise goes on: a kayak that is fast enough for paddling but doesn't have to be wide enough for sailing.
Stay tuned.

Did you say wood?

Yeah, wood.
I'm starting to be of the opinion that with world population pushing on toward 7 billion people, wood is no longer a renewable resource, at least not the kind of wood that used to be used for boats and paddles. It's turning into a material used primarily in the manufacture of luxury items.
Yesterday, my shop partner Sebastian was working on some shelving he had bought at Ikea and was modifying. He sawed through the shelf which was about 2 inches thick. The flat surfaces were made of 1/8 inch of some composite. The sides were faced in plastic. The perimeter was made of chip board and the hollow interior was filled with a paper honeycomb material.
I suspect that in the northern latitudes of the world where trees are small, they do not bother cutting trees into boards. I suspect that they feed it directly into a chipper and then glue the chips into particle board. Wood is the feedstock for an industrial process.
Of course you can't build boats out of the kind of stuff that Ikea makes furniture out of. You need actual wood for that.
Same sort of dispiriting trends that have developed for boat building wood have also developed for paddle building wood. My supplier has piles of Sitka spruce in his warehouse, but he hasn't re-ordered in a while due to the recession and each time I go to get more wood for paddles, I have to pick through more boards to find the few good ones suitable for paddles.
So yes, wood is renewable if you're talking of the stuff you can plant now and harvest in ten years, but boat building wood has always been cut from trees that have had a hundred years of growth or more. Once we cut all of that down, it will be the twenty second century until we can see some more of it, assuming of course that anyone lets a tree stand that long.

Appropriate Technology???

Every year, the magazine Scientific American puts out a special issue devoted to a single topic. This year's issue is entitled the end. Or is it?
Popular science magazines aren't noted for their deep thinking. Their editorial content trends firmly toward cheerleading science and technology. So the current issue of Scientific American is a pleasant surprise.
Among other things it has a list of technologies that in the opinion of the editors the world would be better off without. What a concept - technology is not all an unalloyed good! Scientific American is not the first body to have this idea, but for a cheerleading magazine, it is a good start.
It also has an article on resources that the earth does not have limitless supplies of. Among them, oil, silver, gold, copper, coal, all due to run out in this century.
So what does any of this have to do with building skin boats? Nothing, directly, but wood wasn't one of the things we're expected to run out of this century. So skin boat building has some promise for the future. Skinboat building has its problems as well, like what to use for a skin in place of nylon or polyester when the oil is gone later in this century.
Or if you're living in a place that has no wood like Easter Island where you've cut down all your trees, what do you make the frame out of? Problems, problems.
But perhaps the part of skinboat building I like the best, apart from the difficulty of finding a suitable skin is the low tech nature of the process. It isn't reliant on any upstream industries for its raw materials. You can get your own wood, whittle your own dowels and spin your own yarn.
OK, I'm starting to sound like a survivalist. I'm not a survivalist. But I do like whittling my own dowels and thinking about how I would drill holes without electricity and I do own a rip saw, the kind you operate with muscle power. etc. etc.
Well, enough congratulating myself on what a clever fellow I am. Go out and buy a copy of the current Scientific American and read all about the possible ways that the world will end. What the heck disaster sells magazines.

Shark Bites

Duane Strosaker, our paddler friend down in Southern California had a run in with a great white shark. Go here for pictures and Duane's account.

Mask Burning Ceremony

The people of Kodiak had a mask burning tradition which like most things native was at one time suppressed in an effort to force the native populations into becoming more like Americans with a European background. However, the people of Kodiak are now trying to reclaim some of their suppressed and lost traditions, the mask burning ceremony among them.


Andrew Abyo, pictured above left with myself at the right invited us, attendees of the Aleut culture camp, to come and view his dance group perform at the mask burning ceremony.



Here is the dance troupe, about half of which is Andrew and his family which would be a key part of the mask burning ceremony.



The man who had made the mask, pictured here in the red shirt, explained to us the background of the ceremony. The ceremony is essentially a memorial service. Details of how the ceremony was practiced in the past are vague. Likewise, information about what the burned masks looked like are scarce since they were burned. But one or two masks survived in museums. Apparently they were incomplete and not used in the ceremony. The mask for this ceremony was based on the ones in the museum.




And now it gets more complicated. In addition to the friends of the dancers there was a group of young people, immigrants into this country who were part of some sort of reality show that the Discovery Channel was doing. The show follows these young people as they travel all over America, trying to find their own identity. The man holding the mask and the woman to the right were both part of the Discovery cast. The woman is handing out goose feathers which people tied to the mask. Each feather represented a prayer or offering that would be released when the mask was burned. While this was going on, two camera crews each composed of a camera man and a sound man zoomed about the area taking pictures of everything that was going on. Surprisingly, the ceremony was powerful enough in its own right that the camera crews didn't detract from it substantially.




Once everyone who wanted to had attached their feather to the mask, one of the dancers donned the mask and the group danced.


When the dance was over, the mask went into the fire.


And here it burns, still recognizable as a face.


And finally, it fell apart.

Aleut Bent Wood Hat Making

Bent wood hat making at the APIA Culture Camp was once again being taught this year by Patty Lekanoff-Gregory. Bent wood hats come in many different configuration from short visors to long billed visors to full-crowned chief's hats. Patty teaches them all.

Hats are bent over forms, this one being for a short visor.

And this one for a large visor or full crowned hat.


Blanks for the hats are cut out on a band saw from poplar stock sawed down to one half inch sheets. The blanks are then carved down in certain places to make them more pliable. Thicker ridges are left in strategic places to make the bent wood take on the proper shape.


Once completed, the blanks are kept wet to maintain their pliability.


When the time comes for bending, the carved blanks are put in boiling water till uniformly hot and then are bent over the bending from. Action at this point is very focused as you can see from the picture. The wood only stays hot and pliable for a short time. If you wait too long and the wood stiffens up, it may crack and hours of work carving go down the drain.


When the bending is complete, the hat is left to dry in its form. When dry, it can be removed from the form and will maintain its shape.


Here Patty and I are showing off the long billed visor she made for me.


My part of the deal was to make Patty a paddle.

Third annual Urban Unangax^ Culture Camp

For the second year in a row, I was invited to participate in the Urban Unangax^ culture camp put on by the APIA, the Aleut Pribilof Islands Association. Recognizing the fact that most Aleuts these days live in urban environments, mainly Anchorage, the APIA has been putting on the culture camp at their new headquarters building in Anchorage. As you might guess from the name, the purpose of the camp is to teach traditional Aleut or Unangan cultural activities to both school age children and adults.
Classes are given in language, basket weaving, regalia, drum making, traditional food preparation, hunting hat construction, kayak construction, dance and more.
A pictorial overview follows.

Moses Dirks who hails from Atka was this year's instructor in traditional foods. Here he demonstrates how to fillet a salmon in preparation for air drying.


And here are the students following his lead.

Moses is also one of the few hundred Aleuts who still grew up speaking the Atkan dialect of Unangam Tunuu, the Aleut language. Moses helped with the Aleut pronunciation of kayak parts which Mike Livingston recorded. Moses is on the right and I am on the left with an empty plate heading back into the chow line for seconds.


Which is as good a point as any to introduce the pot luck put on on the last day of culture camp. People bring lots of goodies which anyone would recognize and also Alaskan favorites such as caribou, fish pie, smoked fish, fish soup, etc.

Aleut women were noted for their fine weaving and basketry which employed specially dried and processed beach grass. Weaving went on inside the building and we were building kayaks outside so I didn't get a chance to take more pictures of the many creations. Next time.

Kids learned traditional dances which they are putting on here before the big potluck in front of an appreciative audience.


Older kids put on their dance outside on the lawn.


Back when Russia still controlled Alaska, they move some of the Aleuts to the Commander Islands to do the sea otter hunting there. When Russia sold Alaska to the US, the Commander Islands stayed under the control of the Russians. The Russians like the Americans had a policy of modernizing the natives and so, Aleut Culture went into a decline in Russia as it did in the US. Russian Aleuts now are trying to regain their culture and three representatives from Russia were here at the culture camp to see how American Aleuts were teaching traditional culture. In the photo above, two of the Russians on the right and Sally Swetzof one of the American instructors join in on singing a traditional Aleut song.


Younger children, besides learning dances and language also made paper versions of the traditional hunting hats. Each one was also given a traditional Aleut name which was written on a name tag which the photo shows them wearing.


Mask making, a traditional Aleut activity was not taught at the culture camp, but one of the older students improvised with a piece of discarded kayak skin.

My own participation was in kayak making. This photo shows two baidarkas made by Mike Livingston and myself at last year's camp which now adorn the lobby of the APIA headquarters building.


Future kayak builders were also in attendance. They were skeptical at first but after some persuasion, got into the act.



And I almost forgot the Native Youth Olympics. This year's champion in the high kick was on hand to demonstrate her skill. The object of this sport is to kick a ball suspended above the contestant's head. Due to lag time of my camera, I wasn't able to get it to click the shutter at the critical moment so you have to take my word that she did kick the ball.

How did the Aleuts hold their paddles?

Did I already address this issue once before? Maybe. Well, I'm addressing it once again.

The question is, did Aleuts hold their paddles ridge side back or flat side back when paddling? The answer is unclear, at least given the photographic evidence I have. Thanks to a generous sharing of images by Jeff Dickrell of Unalaska, I have a number of vintage photos of Aleut paddlers as evidence. I am presenting these photos here and the answer is that at least in photos, paddlers can be seen holding paddles both ways. What makes the evidence ambiguous are two factors. One is that the photos aren't always clear enough to determine how the paddlers are holding their paddles. The other is that the photos are staged, that is, the paddlers had to maintain their position within camera range and so are possibly paddling backward to keep their kayaks in the frame. As a consequence, they may have reversed the normal paddle orientation.

In any case, and without further ado, I offer up the photos with appropriate commentary.
Keep in mind that blogspot software reduces image size to the point of uselessness for this sort of analysis. So to see the images at a reasonable size, you have to click on them. Here we go.


Here are two guys with their paddles unambiguously facing flat side back. The guy in the back isn't actually holding his paddle, but we can assume that he is resting it the way he paddles it. The guy in the front has an interesting grip on his paddle, that is, with the hands out on the base of the paddle blades and the fingers curled around the blade ridge. Is that how he paddled or is this just a hand position for bracing and positioning the boat for the camera?


Here, both the front and back paddlers are holding their paddles flat side back. The guy in the middle is bracing with an extended paddle stroke putting the paddle in an invisible position.

This is clearly a posed picture meant to illustrate how the guy in the bow throws a dart while the guy or guys in the back steady the boat. Out of the frame on the left of the lower boat, the bow man is aiming a rifle. The guy in the lower right and the guy in the upper left are both holding their paddles flat side back judging by the curve of the loom. The guy in the left foreground is bracing so it's hard to tell paddle orientation.


In this photo, the guy in the bow is clearly paddling ridge back. The guy in the middle is hard to tell and the guy in the back likewise is hard to tell. Plus he is doing an extended paddle brace where anything seems to go.

Finally, another picture that doesn't prove anything except that some Aleut paddles had very short looms. A paddler using this kind of paddle would almost be obliged to hold his paddle at the root of the blades like this guy is doing and the most comfortable way to do that would be ridge forward, flat side back.