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The fast and light kayaks and canoes of today made of plastic
or fiber glass materials have a long and fashinating history.
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The word "canoe" is said to be derived from the carribian
word "kenu" which means something like "hollow", "excavated". Thousands of years
ago primitive people made simple crafts by excavating tree trunks. Later these crafts
were elaborated further to rafts and rowing boats.
The North American indians, specially at the east coast
of present day USA and further north in present day Canada, refined these kind of
barks further to the slender and fast going crafts we know today as "canoes" or
"canadians".
"Canadians" are open crafts without cockpit, oblong and
slender and are paddled with one-blades paddles.
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Canoe made of birch bark, Ojibway indians,
present day Ontario, Canada |
The indians crafted their canoes with a skeleton of wooden
strips covered by birch-bark. Birch-bark is a perfect building material as it is
easy to shape and is resistant to water.
The good thing about birch-bark is also that they had material for repair of the
canoe everywhere they went in the wilderness. They built a lot of diffferent types
of canoes, everything from light, quickpaddled small canoes for a single person
to big transport canoes that could house a lot of people together with their bags
and supplies.
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Canoe made of birch bark, Algonkinian indians,
present day Quebec, Kanada |
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"Canoes in a Fog", painting by Frances Ann Hopkins 1869 |
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White explorers and adventurers learned by the indians
to create their own canoes by birch-bark.
The first indian canoe written about was in a report by
the french explorer
Jacques Cartier who 1535 recounts about a meeting with indians
on the S:t Lawrence River in the neighbourhood of present Montreal. The indians
traveled in two huge birch-bark canoes that hold 17 men.
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Kayaks are a decked canoe with one or
more cock-pits. Kayaks are paddled with two-bladed paddles.
Kayaks originates from the arctic territories in northern
Alaska, Greenland and northern Sibiria where eskimoes and other primitive people
constructed the kayak to be able to fish and hunt with harpune.
The word "kayak" meanes "hunting boat". Kayaks have been
in use for thousands of years. Apart from this kayak the eskimoes used so called
"umiaks", a kind of open skin-boats, to be able to travel over open waters loaded
with carriage and a lot of people.
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For the eskimoes the kayak was a must to be able to survive
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The kayak was specially built to be able to fish and hunt in the cold and grim climate
in the arctic territories during all kind of weather conditions. The kayak had to
be decked to be able to be in use in the cold and frosty climate. |
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The kayaks of Greenland were very long and slender and
were specially built for their owners so they would be as slim and slender as possible
and could be paddled as as easy and quick as possible. They were built by a wooden
skeleton covered by several sealskins sewn together with sinew threads. The skeleton,
made by wooden strips of pine, juniper or willow, was not put together using nails,
but sewn together with the help af senew threads and leather straps. They covered
this slender skeleton with sealskins joined together and oiled with whale-oil and
blubber. |
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The so called "eskimoe rolling", as we nowadays view as
a special trick by well trained sportsmen and paddlers, was for the eskimoes an
indispensable necissity they just had to master to be able to survive. The hunter
maybe had been injured or had been caught with the hand in a harpune rope and because
of that, the kayak had capsized. Then you just had to know your "rolling" ! |
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It was not until the 18th century you could see a kayak
in Europe. It was a Danish missionary who in 1724 brought two authentic eskimoes,
Poek and Qiperoq, with him on his way back to Copenhagen, where they showed their
kayaks and made great excitement. |
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It was the Scotsman J. McGregor who in the middle of the
19th century made the kayak well known in Sweden. He travelled in his own kayak
"Roy Roy" around in Sweden. In the beginning of the 20th century it was quite popular
among young boys to construct their own kayaks.
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The homemade kayaks and canadians people, built with wooden
strips and canvas, were unfortunately very fragile and heavy to paddle. Round about
1940-1950 canoes industies started to make canoes by aluminium and veneer. But it
was difficult to create these canoes like the original slender canoes. These industrially
made canoes were heavy, clumpsy and not so easy to paddle. It was not until round
about 1960-1970 when it became possible to construct canoes in plastic and fibreglass
as canoes were really well constructed and became enormously popular.
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