North Alaskan Hunting Kayak Construction Details
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- Опубліковано 14 січ 2025
- In this comprehensive video we take a deep dive into traditional North Alaskan kayaks and the process of constructing replicas of historic kayaks in general. North Alaskan Kayaks are intricate, challenging to build, and quirky to paddle, but just like all traditional kayaks, they teach valuable lessons that can be applied to modern kayak design. Make sure to also check out the beautiful video we created showing these kayaks being built, from start to finish: • Building Traditional N...
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It's incredible to me that some of the most amazing examples of wood work on Earth were done by people who probably never even saw a tree before.
Amazing work Sir. I love your videos.
Its always good watching your work.
Those frames are fantastic works of art
This has all the ingredients for one HECK of a SUPER COOL ADVENTURE! Oh Yeah!!!
Men Thank you for sharing beautiful and excellent job man thank you
I am Inupiaq from Kotzebue and I had to look at an old picture of my Great Grandfather with his hunting gear kayak and umiaq (Whale hunting boat). This is the same design kayak he was standing next to. Wonderful video. Bad pronunciations but great video lol
Great video . Very cool how each region of the arctic had its own kayak style to meet local needs , you explained that very well . Nice work on the frames they are beautiful .
I appreciate you sharing this.
Although I paddle a plastic kayak, I love seeing how kayaks came to be.
You inspire a worthwhile challenge and creatively honour the Inuit people. Thank you
Hi Brian thanks for posting, I get a lot out of your videos and really appreciate the level of detail
Beautiful Kayaks. I'd love to own a replica even if just for the beauty of it.
These are amazing works of art! Someday I will build one this beautiful and useful. Thanks for this video and all of them.
This is art
wouah digne d'un exosquelette organique ! magnifique
Thanks Brian, for sharing that and going into a really interesting level of detail that answers a lot of my questions about this design of boat. I'm always curious about the idiosyncrasies of actually paddling them, something often not mentioned when looking at replicas, and the point you rightly make about them being designed for hunting etc, not as recreational toys, something many people have forgotten. As I get to know the F1 that I've just built, I look forward to any developments that you make on this . Thank you and, especially, to the original designers, who had to use these in order to eat.
Good job , easy to understand.
I built both a Hooper bay and a north Alaska retrieval kayak some years ago. The retrieval kayak was used by Inuit hunters to retrieve animals shot by rifle from shore, at nine foot six inches it paddled like a whitewater boat. I never used in heavy water, but it would have been very able in wind and waves. the Hooper bay kayak also built from David Zimmerly's book " Qajaq" was a different beast altogether, it was tiddly feeling, the coaming was too high to paddle sitting comfortably, but when a single blade paddle was used while kneeling it was okay. I should have tried it ballasted with sand bags, the hunters carried their game inside the boat when returning home. the extra weight would stabilize the boat and bring the flare into use. These boats are artifacts of how they were used and are a window into practices and techniques we can only just speculate on. We will never have to make our living from a cold sea.
Agreed, that's why I don't put too much stock into observations gathered. Even with extensive use we are far removed from the original context.
I’ve been reading Robert Morris and I’m thinking about building his recovery kayak, based on the smaller Alaskan retrieval boats. It would be a bit different and more of a play boat. But I’m still considering your online class. That could very well be the best value for my money! Thank you for sharing so much of your knowledge without expecting anything in return. It’s inspirational!
Robert Morris is a good guy but he also built a very small handful of boats and then wrote a book about it. So you just want to consider that information in that context.
Thx, super crasftmanship.
Very nice the information thx! Please more :)
The framework alone is a piece of art worthy of being displayed on a large wall.
Just found your channel and have watched about four so far and I believe that you are a Genius! , you sir have got some mad wood working skills. I would like to try out one of these kayaks, they look amazing. Thanks
Seus caiaques são incríveis!
this guy is a genious!!!
did you add weight to the bigger kayak ? as that would be like if it had caribou on it and would lower it and alter the performance.. skitish and manoeuvres for the hunt and stable with the kill on board.. ?
Phenomenal craftsmanship and a beautiful piece of art. That's why they are displayed in architectural settings. You can see one on the wall at the Tillamook Cheese Factory Visitor Center.
Beautiful work
Thanks for sharing your craft. Very impressive skills, really enjoyed the detailed discussion.
Wow! So nice to see you feeling well and doing such interesting work. Love the video. Too bad they weren’t being finished. I would have loved to hear about how they roll. My wife and I were lucky enough to get out on some SOTs this past weekend in Florida. My wife usually paddles a Carolina and she instantly noticed what a dog the SOT was. It was fun talking about design with her. She usually isn’t interested.
Cheers,
Chris
The flat bottom would make sense if they were having to move them across large ice sheets and then paddling in area where there was overflow (slushy water over ice). In these cases, you would need a very shallow draft that was very stable laterally. Just some thoughts.
That makes sense.
1:27 Can you try make the number 2 kayak?
I saw a Swedish 42' sailboat with what looked like 4" wide ribs, but ribs spaced so close as to just put 2" approx. spacing between ribs! One of nicest sailboats I ever sailed! On these High front cockpits because they got tired of getting soaked in ice water at every wave! Looks great for flexing through wave water not all tied together with floating stringers, cool! I like one!
Good job...mate !!!
Thanks. My dad’s dad built kayaks+canoes for the Olympics. They’re still doing a Ted W Houk memorial race at Green lake in N Seattle. It’s in my blood. We should all learn to build, hunt, skin, tan. Skal!
Greenlake..... Many memories
@@TonyFDiego if rain hasn't gotten you wet enough, roll your kayak. Ok, helmet's a bit green...
How fascinating, absolutely beautiful. It makes me wonder about the measuring system that may have been used. Could the use of the users own limbs and body size and frame have been integral to the stability and maneuverability of these awesome vessels?
Thousands of years of trial and error is very rarely wrong.
verdadeira obra de arte 👍
very unstable very fast very maneuverable...that checks out for hunting... and general badassery
wowgreat and exellent teaching bud!!..thats something that i will love to learn and do!! love and blessing from coatzacoalcos veracruz mexico!!!
I would love to see this as plans and a build class. I would buy it.
It’s really not an enjoyable boat to paddle which is why I wouldn’t put the time in the plants however the general hull shapes strongly informed the river kayak that I am going to be releasing
Phenomenal. Inspiring.
There's something vaguely organic feeling about them; almost like a skeleton of some strange animal. I think it's the combination of the curve in the front deck and the ends just meeting rather than having some complicated joinery. Compared to the common Greenland and baidarka designs with more complicated ends which I've always felt look almost mechanical.
If you do end up drawing up plans then I might have to make a couple. I need more Alaskan style kayaks to even out the representation in my fleet.
It's not vagely organic. It's totally organic. I'm sure the originally designers were inspired by nature.
your are right, It's look like a Whale skeleton Shape,
Additionally my favorite white water kayak with flat water capabilities was the Perception Dancer. Grand Canyon and a lot of Class 5 rivers back in the day.
Did you ever have a chance to paddle a lettman MKIV?
How would it handle with a load of seal or game on the deck? The extra weight is a consideration.
Absolutely, totally agree. There's only so much you can understand about any native kayak without doing what they were doing, the way they were doing it.
Likely the Inuit didn't transport the kill on the kayak - they used to make floating buoys out of sealskin which they used to mark the location of the kill and perhaps leave it there to pick up later. They also made larger open-top boats called umiaks which seated several people and were paddled like canoes. (Or some did - boat designs vary from place to place)
@@TrevorKeenAnimation Different cultural groups employed different strategies. Some towed, some transported on deck, some put whole animals inside, some butchered in place and transported inside.
hermoso tendras los planos , gracias
Unless I missed it in the video, what type of string did you use for the lashing?
My regards from Estland, you are great Master. Sorry for my english. Tell please, how you calculate longness of ribs before bending. Best whishes.
Marvelous and very interesting! Can you tell the weight of the frames and the expected weight for finished boat with modern nylon and leather for comparison?
I weighed them at the time, but I forget the exact numbers. I can tell you based on experience that a frame like this in white pine with a nylon skin is going to weigh around 40lbs for the large one, and 35 for the small. Red cedar would get that down by 5lbs on each.
I didn't read that closely enough, I don't know about leather, but it is much heavier.
I like the Kodiak island version where one kneels and paddles rather than sitting... no problem launching as you can jump launch...
The space on the back of the kayak reminds me of a pick-up truck flatbed. Could they also served as sleds to be pulled with loads after hunting?
Nice discussion of the build. I really find the end treatment on the keel pieces interesting. That is a complicated shape. I don't immediately see that detail documented in Harvey's book. Is it in his book or did you find that from his research material?
I didn't see it either, it's in the book but you have to look for it. It's barely visible in the frame drawings and I think there might be an illustration. I'm not sure I got it right, I asked for further clarification but harv was busy that week.
Hello. What is this fabric, and where can I buy it? Do you use a 2-component polyurethane varnish?
I use the 840 xtra tuff nylon and 2 part poly from skinboats.com
@@capefalconkayak thanks for the reply. And you can replace this fabric with something and use a one-component varnish
Kotzebue is a German surname, so Kotza-boo or -byoo, and Barrow is English so pronounced like wheelbarrow. The Inupiat have changed the name to Utqiagvik (like Ut keeyaggg vik, the g is gutteral in the back of your throat). Inupiaq is the language, Inupiat/Inuit are the people.
Glad to see you coming west in your designs, maybe Hooper Bay next? Or Aleut/Alutiiq? Great job!
Where can you get the plans for this kayak?
Thanks for sharing all this!!
Pretty boats. Also love the groove gouge, do you have a link for where to find that?
I think it's called a scorp, bought it locally
@@capefalconkayak Maybe 'scauper'? Found pictures that match but no one willing to sell me one. Thanks.
잘보고 갑니다 👍👍👍
The added bounency of the larger kayak was probably to accomadate the added weight of a kill. It'd be interesting to test with a body on board , fore and aft , or both? The Alaska Extreme video mentioned hauling gear too. A dead cariboo on the deck may have made it more unstable.
Different Inuit groups had a different strategies for hauling the kill and usually the kayak was modified for the purpose. This particular group towed their kill home.
@@capefalconkayak Really! That'd be a long trip home. I've had swimmers grab my kayak and I couldn't drag them to save my life. Getting a cariboo on the boat would be quite a challenge and would probably make it dangerously top heavy.
And they didn't think the ancient people had intelligent s . People today with our tech probably couldn't produce these . Man you put some skill into these builds , awesome .
Interestingly, the very characteristic which makes gives it stability on its edges means that when a person was leaning over the side trying to spear or pull in an animal or fish, the kayak would be at its most stable. That makes a lot of sense because this is the time when a kayaker is in the most danger and not having to worry about tipping while hauling some animal would be reassuring.
That’s why I design my own modern skin on frame kayaks with very little primary stability but a ton of secondary stability. For the larger one of these though it’s pretty hard to imagine what the thinking was or if there was any thinking at all. Very little stability and then these are chunks of stability at really unnatural angles. I’ve never paddled anything like it. Something it doesn’t get talked about very much is that just because the kayak ended up in the museum doesn’t mean it was a good kayak. It’s possible that a certain model was given or sold to explorers because it didn’t paddle very well. They’re also wasn’t the same level of expertise that one might imagine. A master builder in a village might have only built four or five kayaks in his lifetime. So sometimes things were just the way they were because they were the way they were and if you didn’t die in your boat it was hanging around for somebody else to look at and maybe copy. The interesting thing about evolution is that for an idea or an animal to survive it doesn’t need to be the best option it just needs to live long enough to replicate. There were lots of different hunting styles and lots of different arctic kayaks to go with them but what’s always interested me is that often times you would see different cultural groups doing almost the exact same type of hunting but in completely different ways with completely different boats. That was a pretty long response, just kind of thinking out loud.
@@capefalconkayak think away. I dont mind talking about it. Ive never built anything. In NZ they calved their canoes out of solid wood. A whole other conversation.
Hola muy buen día saludos desde Colombia
Pregunta el material con el cual hacer los Kayak es bambú O pino ?
Hola Miguel, en esto caso los pedazos largos están hechos de pino y los pedazos curvados están hecho de roble, pero hay muchas otras opciones Dependiendo de lo que esté disponible localmente.
If I see a flat bottomed boat the first thing I think of is that it was used to carry cargo. I think you should try that filled to the brim with equipment and food. Dead caribou and suchlike.
Nunamiut kayaks from Chandler and Itikillik Lakes were made for harvesting swimming caribou. North Alaska maritime area has the polynya areas which stay open for a long time and are magnets for seals, while further east from Barrow there are inlets and prominent points and strings of islands offshore which have longer periods of open water. Seal fat is the natural fuel of Arctic people and for those parts of the year with open water a kayak is the pathway to reliable food, oil for heat and light, and materials like gut, stomach, skin and sinew.
Thank you for the information. It was great to see the details explained in a very understandable way. Curious, which native Corp helped you out? ASRC? Norton sound?
When I followed your design and construction, I had to scale it larger because I'm 6'1" and 245 lbs and so i wound up with a long wider kayak
personally I'd be very interested to hear your take on a touring/white water kayak combination. Certainly fills a niche which isn't really filled to my knowledge
I've been working on this for a long time as a side project. I build one every few years and test it, including some that performed well but just didn't have the 'magic' that I need to feel. I'll knock out another one in the next month and we'll see how it goes. There are actually a few decent commercial boats that are oriented this way, but they're just too heavy for my taste. I'm fine to dodge rocks and accept a bit more fragility. Interestingly, the first kayak to run all the rapids in the Grand Canyon was a skin-on-frame in 1960. It is misreported as a fiberglass kayak because the skin was soaked in resin, but it was built over a wooden frame and skinned with muslin.
Brian,
I have studied both books Harvey Golden: Kayaks of Alaska; Kayaks of Greenland. Both are impressive collections of work capturing the history of designs by region and peoples. From the views in your video, I think you have done a fantastic job of building these replica frames. I have a question concerning the scale of these boats. The native peoples of these regions were fairly small as compared to the average US person today. How much would these designs have to be scaled to meet requirements for a 6ft 190lb person?
I honestly can't tell how they were scaled for those people, or to what purpose. The larger kayak has literally double the volume of the smaller. More to the point, these kayaks are the last thing I would build to actually paddle, although they are really cool to look at. I just finished my first prototype of a kayak I designed based on this hull shape that is equally fast, but more comfortable and more stable. I'll have something up on UA-cam in a week or so, but I just posted an on the water video on our instagram instagram.com/capefalconbuilds
love watching your vids. have you ever paddle the northshore shoreline or the shoreline fuego ? i have the fuego The Shoreline Fuego (its full name) is the little bro of the Shoreline kayak which in 1982 founded the North Shore Kayak line. In fit and form it is the small person's sea kayak, celebrating the seaworthy British modified Greenland form.
Rare to find a kayak of almost 16 feet, 20" beam that's sized for the small paddler (i'm5'7", 10st 8lb, 30" in seam, size 9 feet ) The cockpit is low and aftdeck flat which mates well to smaller torsos, and which facilitates rolling and self rescues. No thigh braces are needed- plenty of grab area under the 16"x26" cockpit, nice low 10.5" foredeck (8.5" in the rear). Water ready the kayak is 44lbs
I’ve never heard of either of those kayaks but I agree there’s not a lot of sea kayaks out there that actually fit smaller people well. A traditional Greenland kayak typically makes a very poor sea kayak but for smaller people who actually float them a bit higher in the water it can actually be a nice alternative.
info on a fuego is rare
footage of the fuego is rarer..
but this is the
Northshore Calypso, which was a scaled up "expedition" version of the Fuego.ua-cam.com/video/rkXcs89YQIQ/v-deo.html
this is the shoreline fuego
running the tidal race in
ua-cam.com/video/2Gz21i7c5ck/v-deo.html
I wonder if the larger kayak would have different stability characteristics if it was loaded down a bit
My instinct is that I don’t think so because of the shape but who knows. This particular cultural group towed their kills so the originals wouldn’t have carried a load.
I have a theory, that the larger boat would become more stable with more load. Caribou / seals are heavy, and need to be transported back from the hunt. The flatter keeled boat may have been practical for this purpose with its also flattened sheer creating higher & more "barge-like" freeboard.
The smaller boat with more rocker and sheer will paddle better, but loses freeboard amidships if heavily loaded, less practical for carrying weight. Any thoughts?
Love your videos btw.
Hey, just wanted to say that theres a typo on the url to your website (its lacking a W in www.)
I have absolutely no experience with kayaking, however:
Could it be that the whole hunting kit and stuff they used helped to get a bit more stability into the biger one?
beautiful work my friend. sorry for my english, i live in brazil, i would like to know what type of wood you use and what type of fabric. thanks
These did not get skinned but usually I use nylon
I'm building a ceder strip for the ocean nice show though
Very beautiful! I wonder how the larger of the two would handle when laden with an extra 150 pounds of meat/cargo? Would make it sit a little lower perhaps...
Saran wrapped kayaks..................that is a interesting though. Did you use the residential rolls from the grocery store or a big commercial box roll from a big restaurant? Would that be a practical way to test a frame before you do all the stitching, painting, etc?
It takes a huge amount of commercial wrap and a lot of time. It's not a great test and doesn't tell you as much as you think it would. I just did it here because it was the only option.
@@capefalconkayak ...thank you. I suspected as much.
@@capefalconkayak You probably want industrial wrap made for packing rather than food.
You might find the kayaks paddle better if you add gear (weight) to the boat that the hunter may have had along. They may have stowed camping/survival gear and food weighing 20 to 30 lbs in the front. That would correct the waterline on the bigger kayak and make it paddle better.
Please post the video of you paddling the kayaks please ... :)
Sorry, the light was too bad to get any usable video. The photos are all we have.
From my understanding; kayaks made traditionally from the north were eyeballed. They measured based on feeling rather than precision. Also, those would have been post colonial as the precolonial kayaks were and would have been made using bones and pre metallurgical tools. Great job.
Prhaps this kayak is unstable because it must be used with ballast, it is a ship made to transport goods rather than hunt ?
The Inupiat towed their kills, so that wouldn't be a factor.
I wonder if the larger kayak was designed to carry much more weight than the paddler. If it sat deeper in the water, it might be more stable. The Inupiat would have to both hunt and haul meat in the kayak.
Seems like that instability is linked to the strength of the deck beams at the back... Maybe that's specifically for carrying an animal carcass?
Hi Roy, The Inupiat towed their kills, so this wouldn't be a factor.
Benefit of an anthropometric is that it is possible to naturally scale a kayak to the individual. a bigger person would build a bigger kayak while a smaller person would build a smaller kayak. This has the potential to optimise a weight size ratio.
That’s definitely the idea but in real life it doesn’t actually work that way with the wide variety of shapes and sizes of modern people. So let’s say you’ve got a guy that 6’4” but only weighs 160 pounds and then you’ve got another guy that’s 5’6” but weighs 220, both of these guys would end up in the wrong size kayak. They probably worked better in homogenous populations were people were more or less the same size.
@@capefalconkayak i imagine that 220 lb fat guys were not likely to have the endurance these cultures required out hunting. I suspect thwyd be left smoking and drying yesterdays kills.
I get this question a lot in relation to modern people using traditional boats so maybe I misunderstood your point. As far as what the natives actually did it really just depends on the time period the location and the cultural group. There’s limited evidence that some groups used various anthropomorphic systems.
Mmm....i want blueprints !!!!
I'm sure you watched the UA-cam video "Tuktu- 2 The Big Kayak" to see a real one built on the beach in the 1950's by original Inuits. It would be great to see one well built from true drift wood and not so Fine Woodworking Gourmet kayak which these are. Don't get me wrong- they are an excellent textbook perfect kayak and are beautifully made. But how nice if they were made with sewn driftwood -complete with sewn scarf joint amidships, using a Hudson Bay crooked knife and then covered in say, deerskin made water tight with maybe acrylic or boot waterproofing oil. By the way in Point Hope they make their coamings of two thinner layers one around the other. Also I'm sure you know that the curve of the bilge on the ribs was done by heating and biting in their teeth so that it made a tiny bit of deformation in the wood, and they bit and bit and bit over and over to get it to bend the right amount where they wanted. Also, you are too tall. A lot of these people were like 5'6 or less. The thing might have been more stable if you shrunk yourself.
I’m actually one of the few people alive who has built one of these in the traditional way from Driftwood. It was challenging and quite outside the budget of this customer. However, I want to stress that the finished product of these kayaks is identical to the original museum boats that we were working from. Some in your kayaks were quite crudely belt and others rival the finish quality of even present day fine woodworking standards.
That’s really interesting about the point hope coamings, I haven’t seen that documented. Makes sense.
@@capefalconkayak Thank-you for your kind response. Its intriguing that some were so refined. Curious how they did it. Was there a video made of the driftwood build? Also have you seen the 1950's Tuktu 2 kayak making video? What would be interesting would be a video of you watching the kayak making part of that video, occasionally pausing and commenting on it with some of your insights. Its a bit simpler than yours, i.e. fewer and cruder pieces, similar elegant shape and the sewn skin stretching is shown. In another 1950"s Tuktu video about clothing he comments that his mother was able to sew sealskin boots so well they were watertight. No compound of some kind was used.
@@paulbriggs3072 it was before my video days but if you look at my old website there’s photographs of the Belcher Island kayak process. I’ve seen the Tuktu series, entertaining and impressive.
@@capefalconkayak Thank-you.
Pronounced "coats-a-bew".... Nice work and vid!!
Load carrying kayak for sure. Hunters would secure their catch on top (front and back) and in tow. My great grandfather would come home and you couldn't see his kayak because it would be completely submerged.
👌👌👍👍🙋♂️🙋♂️🇸🇰🇸🇰
hello Brian, put a caption for me to translate.
This kayaka Sat high in water because it was meant to carey a load. When caring the right amount of weight it would have been much more stable.
you're half-right! on the way home from the hunt, there would have been more weight.
@@capefalconkayak I agree to disagree , a kayak that sit higher in the waterline is going to be less stable, but more maneuverable and faster great for hunting. The iniut
@@augustoduminuco4683 I took a bit of time to fact check this, and it turns out that these Inuit never carried weight in the boat, kills were towed. It's really hard to make any generalizations about anything with arctic kayaks. Some of this subgroups kayaks sat quite high in the water, some quite low. Whether there was a real performance reason or whether you just built a kayak and got used to it isn't something we can know.
the big one would probably feel much different loaded with half a carribou
and supplies
Would you like to sell a bare bones kayak to Australia?
I would but I think the shipping would be pretty steep
I notice, enviously, that your timber is knot free. That much knot free pine Timber would not be possible to source in the Uk. Is this down to luck, species, timber yard skill, strong customer insistence….?
It doesn’t need to be quite this clear but it does need to be fairly knot free, we definitely pay for the privilege. You could never find anything like this at a lumberyard you have to find it through specialty sources.
@@capefalconkayak Aaah. Thank you.
Снова у русских технологии воруете.
Аляска это Россия. У вас во временном пользовании. Там живут русские народности севера.
Них@ена не понятно, но прикольно👍
lmao they just find a Orcas Killer Whale Skeleton, and threw skin around it.
if the Eskimos built their kayaks like you. they would starve to death.
Shut up you idiot.
how so?
As an inuit from utqiagvik. Pt. Barrow, they wouldve done well with these qayaqs. Inspiring.
!=8)
“anthropometric measurements” you say? Oh, like *foot*?
horses are measured by "hands" :-)
It's means construct exactly for your body sizes.
Ты,че не Русский чертеж выстави...
Thanks now I can make a shitload of these and don't have to buy any from you half your price anybody want one call me kits hundred bucks
?????
Too much talking
Too much talking