Qayaqing Traditions

This past week I have been researching Alutiiq qayaqs and looking for images to use in an upcoming Alutiiq Museum exhibit. The exhibit, titled 'Qayaqing Traditions', will travel to Kodiak's remote villages this spring and then be open to the public this summer at the museum. Our director Sven travels to the villages with the exhibit and will teach the kids how to made a model qayaq frame. The exhibit is intended to inspire their efforts and educate them at the same time.

One of my favorite parts about researching particular subjects is that when you go back to the literature with a different question in mind you always find new things that you overlooked in the past (when you were looking for information about something else). You are coming to the game with new eyes so to speak. One book that I had not looked at in years is a 3 volume set all about the art of Captain Cook's expeditions in the late 1700's (the book is at the museum so I do not have a full reference). It contains all of the original drawings that were made by his officers in the field during his three voyages. On his third voyage Cook visited Alaska (immediately prior to getting eaten in Hawaii).

Cook spent most of his time in Southeast Alaska and in the Aleutians, but he did visit Prince William Sound where he encountered the Chugach Alutiiq. looking through the book I learned that an image I always thought depicted 'kayaks of Oonalaska' actually shows both an Alutiiq (from Prince William Sound) and Aleut qayaq (from near Dutch Harbor) (top photo). I've known about the image for years but had only seen the engraved version that is titled 'kayaks of Oonalaska'.

Reading through the book I realized that the engravings I am so familiar with were engraved back in England - and generally not by the original artist. Later engravings often look totally different from the original. Like in the bottom photo - the Alutiiq woman on the left was drawn by Webber during Cook's visit to Prince William Sound. Back in Jolly old England another artist (Ellis) made the engraving. In doing so, Ellis somehow turned her into a comely British woman wearing a fur coat. Another thing that engravers often did is turn a drawing into a mirror image during the engraving process. This often makes landscapes tough to identify!

I had a lot of fun looking at the original drawings. I saw details I'd never noticed before (check out the gear on the deck of the qayaq and the hair stitched into the seams of the bow) and even found a couple images of Alutiiq Angyaqs that I had not known existed. Angyaqs are large skin-covered open boats that were not made for very long after Russian contact and about which little is known. Anyway for more information about the upcoming exhibit check out the Alutiiq Museum web page at http://alutiiqmuseum.org/ and look under exhibits. Patrick