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Unaligmiut kayaks are longer & narrow than most Bering Sea kayak types. The Unaligmiut hunted beluga whales, & this may be why their kayaks have sleeker & faster hull-shapes. To catch belugas, the Unaligmiut would surround a heard during a falling tide & drive them into shallows or up sloughs, where the animals stranded. They also hunted seal around sea ice & carried a sled on the back deck.
A builder made this frame in the early 1900s with naturally bent pieces of wood from tree roots or limbs for the kayak's deck beams. The back end of the keel has a natural bend of almost go degrees with continuous grain, which is much stronger than a jointed piece. The builder bent the numerous ribs along the length of the kayak by biting them into shape. Chewing the ribs the desired areas crimped the soft spruce fibers & made them pliable to bend into precise shapes. The builder's teeth marks are visible on all the ribs of this kayak.

Ukivogmiut
King Island Inupiaq kayak
The kayaks of the King Islanders are some of the sturdiest craft built by Native Alaskans. The were used for hunting seals & walrus passing by the steep, rocky sides of King Island, where hunters had to plunge through surf at the shore. Hunters from King Island often carried a small sled on the kayak's back deck. if they encountered sea ice, they could fit the kayak onto the ice & tow it on the sled to open water. Note the shaped handgrips at the kayak's bow & stern.
King Islanders typically covered their kayaks with two types of animal skins. The front of the kayak is bearded seal while the back covering is from a split walrus hide. Both types of skin are extremely durable & using such large hides results in just a single seam around the kayak's bottom. A strip of copper is fastened to the back end of the kayak's keel to protect the skin from damage from rocks & ice.

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Aleut (Sugpiaq/Alutilaq') in festive attire demonstrates hunting methods
By Mikhail Tikhanov, 1818
Courtesy of Scientific Research Museum of the Academy of Arts of Russia

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A Sea Otter
By John Webber from Captain Cook's A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean.
Gift of Belle Goldstein Simpson, Reproduction

Argillite Pipe
Gift of Bill A. Winn

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