Bering Island, Aleutian Islands / Commander Islands, Russia, Asia / North America
Accession Date:
28 Nov 1883
Collection Date:
1882 to 1883
Notes:
From card: "Light wooden frame covered with seal skin covering, lashed with thongs of skin over the gunwales to rib bands on inside flat bottom, sharp end supported by seats."
Catalogue card identifies as from the Aleutian Islands. Anthropology catalogue ledger book entry provides the additional and more specific provenience of Bering Island.
This object is on loan to the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, from 2010 through 2027. Boat model includes 8 paddles (7 oars at sides for paddling, 1 longer oar at stern for steering) on loan.
Source of the information below: Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center Alaska Native Collections: Sharing Knowledge website, by Aron Crowell, entry on this artifact http://alaska.si.edu/record.asp?id=165, retrieved 5-7-2014: Umiak model Large skin boats carried people and cargo between islands and on long-distance expeditions. The nigaalag, made with a driftwood frame and covered with sea lion skins, could hold up to twenty passengers and crew. The original design had a rounded bow and was propelled with paddles. Russian fur trade companies imported a Siberian design that was more suited to their purposes. These boats, which resembled the model shown here, were wider, more stable, and had wooden seats. The bow was slanted and sharply pointed, and oars were used. The modified boats are often called by their Russian name, baidar. From Elders' discussions of the hat in 2003 (see web page cited above for the full entries) with Mary N. Bourdukofsky, Vlass Shabolin, Maria Turnpaugh and Daria Dirks (Tanadgusix Foundation) at the National Museum of Natural History and National Museum of the American Indian, 4/07/2003-4/11/2003. Also participating: Aron Crowell and Bill Fitzhugh (NMNH) and Suzi Jones (AMHA). Maria Turnpaugh: Baidar. (Open skin boat.) Daria Dirks: How do you say this in Aleut [Unangam Tunuu]? Vlass Shabolin: Nig^aalag^ [open skin boat, canvas boat]. In early years, this was used for halibut fishing and sea lion hunting on the water. When the men used to go fur seal hunting, they'd come in on the beach in the rocks there, and then they'd put all the skins inside the baidar. The crew would take it back into the village, so the fur seals could be processed. Other than that, whenever the boat came in from Seattle with our cargo - the groceries, coal and everything - the baidar was used for bringing in our supplies from the boat, because the water was shallow near the docks, so the baidars did the work. And these baidars were seaworthy, where even if you got it full of water, they'd float. So it's still in our tradition, the baidar. Mary Bourdukofsky: They used to say they're very sea worthy, you could trust the baidar in any kind of weather. And they're very easy to maneuver. Vlass Shabolin: It was the best thing the Aleuts made. This was actually for cargo, and then they used the little dories for fishing and stuff like that. This is a work boat, that's what it is, for the Aleuts. Mary Bourdukofsky: It even has its oars, nog^asix^ [oar, paddle]. Vlass Shabolin: This model here has eight people that will oar the baidar, and one coxswain that sits at the back end and takes care of controlling the baidar. On the back here, we had a little stand for our coxswain to stand on to run the baidar when it's surfing or whenever they were oaring it to the dock there. Aron Crowell: Does he use that longer paddle?
Vlass Shabolin: Yes, that's for the coxswain on the back end. Mary Bourdukofsky: Yes, to steer. Each man uses one paddle on both sides - there's eight sitting down. Vlass Shabolin: The coxswain would be hollering on the back end, “Nog^athatha [rowing]!” Then when it's time to turn the boat, they say, "Tabanetha [turn the boat right or left], tabanetha!" It was teamwork. Usually they would use the same crew every year, then later on they'd teach the younger guys. I learned to do that in the 1960s. Vlass Shabolin: When they first made the baidars, they used sea lion skin. They dried up the sea lion skins, and they sewed them together and put it over the ribs. They put it on as tight as they can, then they put the seats on, then the oars. Then many years later, it changed where we started using canvas instead of sea lion skins for the body, and they'd use the sewing machine to put the canvas together. After they do that, they lay it over the ribs of the baidar. Then we'd heat some bee wax and coat it onto the canvas there to make it waterproof and sea worthy. Mary Bourdukofsky: I remember my dad said the seams were very important, the ones they sewed together. I have picture of it back home, pictures of an old one with my dad. And it looks like they have white paint on them, was some sort of putty that seals all the seams. Vlass Shabolin: Oh, that was caulking that used to coat. Mary Bourdukofsky: Yes, and then the last thing they put on is linseed oil on that canvas. Vlass Shabolin: The government supplied all the woodwork for the ribs and then the canvas for the cover. Mary Bourdukofsky: They use steam [to bend the wood for the ribs]. They a build fire and have water boiling there. And as soon as they're dampened, because they're in the steam, they're easy to bend. If it cracks you can't use it. And then they tie them as fast as they can with sinew, a long time ago, but now they use waxed twine or something. This one looks like it has sinew. Aron Crowell: Is this something the whole village would work on? Mary Bourdukofsky: The men do. Vlass Shabolin: You use a certain rope here [lashing around rim]. You can't just get any rope you want and then tie it on. These ropes soften once it gets wet. Mary Bourdukofsky: They waxed them.
Vlass Shabolin: And then every rib is done the same way, and then you've got certain lengths you put in certain areas. Like when they put it together, they'd start the centerpiece first, with the width. Aron Crowell: The shape is very different than an umiak from up north, and one thing I've heard is that this type of boat could be launched right off the beach into the surf. Is it designed for that? Mary Bourdukofsky: Yes, it's pointed, narrow. Vlass Shabolin: The point is for the surf, so your boat won't get out of control and move around. Just like when you buy a skiff, you get the V-shape. That surfs right into the water, straight as it could. If you had a flat bow, then the wind could move you anyplace it'd want, just move you like a piece of driftwood that's on the water when the wind blows about twenty, twenty-five knots. At thirty-five knots these things could really go, and then you could surf with this at twelve-foot waves, even if it's breaking in the harbor. So that's why I said they were sea worthy, even if you got it full of water, with all the load inside of it, it will float. Aron Crowell: Can you launch it off the beach in heavy surf? Vlass Shabolin: Oh, yes. It takes a whole crew, and then sometimes we put it on a skid, but other than that, when you get down to the beach, everybody gets together and starts pushing it down towards the water, and that's how we launch it. Aron Crowell: What would the length be? Vlass Shabolin: Maybe thirty-two feet long. Cargo capacity Aron Crowell: How much do you think a baidar could carry? Vlass Shabolin: A boat like this will maybe carry three nets on the front and in the back, and then you could put a car or a pickup right on top of these seats here and you could bring it in into the harbor. Aron Crowell: So maybe three to four tons? Mary Bourdukofsky: Maybe three tons or four tons. Vlass Shabolin: During wintertime we did all the repairs on this baidar.
Mary Bourdukofsky: They get it ready for spring. Vlass Shabolin: They were maintained constantly, because they were the only thing we had for transportation to go to the boat and then back with the cargo. St. George Island is nothing but rocks, and Garden Cove was the only area where they had sand, but a lot of time they get a hole in it on a low tide on the rocks. So the water's coming in, the men will take their gloves off or whatever and plug the hole up until they get to the landing. When they get to the landing, they beach it and turn it over. One guy comes with a sewing kit, patches it up, and then they put it back in the water again. We had good maintenance on the baidar every time we used it.
Illus. Fig. 7, p. 167 in Anichtchenko, Evguenia. Open skin boats of the Aleutians, Kodiak Island, and Prince William Sound. Etudes inuit. Inuit studies, Vol. 36, No. 1, 2012: 157-181. Identified there: "The Smithsonian model ... and the early 20th-century pictures of open skin boats on the Pribilof Islands show boats propelled by oarsmen, but steered by a long stern oar instead of a rudder. Stern oars are a more practical option for a light-weight skin boat, since a rudder would not just change the boat's centre of gravity but also make it difficult to drag ashore or launch into the surf." Illus. Fig. 10.7, p. 222 in Luukkanen, Harri, Fitzhugh, William W., and Evguenia Anichtchenko. 2020. The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of Northern Eurasia. Washington DC: Smithsonian Scholarly Press. "Although lacking bow and stern head boards, the high sides, flaring bow, and absence of a stern post makes this late-19th-century Unangan umiak from the Aleutian Islands resemble a Koryak or Kerek boat more than a Bering Sea umiak. Was there a sea connection between Kamchatka and the Aleutians via people or floating boat wrecks (Quimby 1947)?"
