When these pieces are properly put together we have the framework of a long boat, with a broad, flat bottom, sharp ends, and flaring sides, with a good deal of "sheer" to the gunwales—that is, with the edge of the boat running up at the bow and stem. To cover this frame they sew together, with an ingenious water-proof double seam, skins of the walrus or the great bearded seal which have been deprived of their hair and dressed with a little of their natural fat, so that they are quite water-proof.
Skins of the bearded seal make the best boat covers, and six good-sized ones are enough for one boat. When the cover is ready it is thoroughly wet and stretched over the frame, the edges being drawn over the gunwales and laced to the strip which supports the seats. Of course, when the skin dries, it shrinks as tight as a drum.
To propel these boats they have a square sail, used only with a fair wind, broad-bladed paddles, and ridiculous little narrow oars, which the women pull with great vigor, but to very little purpose, never keeping time or stroke. The mast stands on one of the floor timbers nearly amidships, and is held up wholly by four stays, two forward and two aft. When the sail is not in use, mast and all are taken down and laid in the bottom of the boat. In traveling along the shore, to save the trouble of paddling, they often harness up three or four dogs and make them trot along the beach, drawing the boat by a long tow-line.
In these boats they chase the walrus, the white whale, and, most important of all, the great "bowhead" or polar whale, from which come the whale oil and whalebone of commerce. In them, too, they make long journeys along the coast in summer, carrying their tents and all their household goods, and sometimes go two or three hundred miles to trade with other Eskimos.
This boat is in no way exclusively a "woman's boat," as it is in Greenland, though the women use it as well as the men, but it is the boat for general use. Nearly every head of a family, unless he is very poor indeed, owns an umiak.
In winter the leather cover is removed and put away in a place of safety, and the framework carefully laid up, bottom up, on a special scaffold out of reach of the dogs.
Though the umiak is not a "woman's boat," the kayak is the man's boat par excellence. The Point-Barrow Eskimos, however, do not use kayaks as much as some others, especially the Greenlanders. All the men, however, and most well-grown youths own kayaks of very good model, and can manage these ticklish craft very skillfully, though they can not compete with the Greenlanders.
Kayaks are mostly used during the summer journeys and for pursuing swimming reindeer and wild fowl on the lakes and riv-
