|
Publicity
" Lone Eagle Flies Again "
II:
To build a kayak
as
reported by Rhonda McBride
Reprint
from KTUU-TV, Anchorage, Alaska 12-99
Bering
Sea kayaks are built with a distinctive hole in
the bow. While the circle is often a theme representing
the universe in Yup'ik art, they also act as an
eye into the genius of craftsmanship: one example
is the ukinqucuak. In the tall grasses of the tundra
surrounding Kwigillingok, Bill Wilkinson holds up
an old weathered piece of wood with a hole in it.
"It comes out of a huge stump," Wilkinson says of
the bow piece. "It's quite a task to get it out
of there. The elders are masters at chopping these
stumps apart. They take them apart like a diamond
cutter."
In
the old days, Kayak makers only had crude tools
at their disposal. There was an elegance, a refinement
in the way they let nature do the work for them.
|
|
Wilkinson
and ukinqucuak
|
"That curvature of the grain creates
great structural integrity," Wilkinson points out
on the ukinqucuak. "If you had all the grain going
straight, this piece here would crack right off."
The
ukinqucuak had to be strong to be used as a handle
to portage kayaks across sea ice and help lash them
together like pontoons. Such pieces of knowledge
were passed on in the traditional men's house, humble
dwellings of mud and driftwood focused on kayak
construction.
For
a Yup'ik kayak blueprint, Wilkinson used the photo
he snapped 20 years ago of two girls crossing in
their grandfather's craft. He tried to copy it,
taking hundreds of other pictures to try and figure
out the proportions. It didn't work.
"I
meticulously had laid the ruler next to them, and
I took all these little ruler measurements and measured
them and made them into blueprints, then blew them
up and made large size templates and cut out all
the pieces," Wilkinson says. It took many hours.
He almost gave up, but was saved by his father-in-law,
Frank Andrew. In five minutes, Andrew was teaching
Wilkinson about the craft and its secret: Like a
suit, each kayak is tailor-made to the kayaker.
Frank
Andrew
"From
a Western point of view, you have to go through
all these blueprints and measurements and scales
and proportions," says Wilkinson. "He (Andrew) carried
the blueprint with him."
To
determine how long a kayak should be, a measurement
is taken from the index finger to the tip of the
other index finger. That distance is doubled. Another
measurement determines the final length of the gunnel,
or apamak. Once again it uses the index finger,
stretching across to the end of the elbow.
On
the kayak Wilkinson toiled over, there are about
70 pieces with measurements corresponding to the
body. Because of this, Wilkinson knows his boat
will look and feel different from kayak's plastic
descendants. For him, it will be like traveling
in time.
"I
live out in the tundra," says Wilkinson. "Some people
say it's the middle of nowhere, and Yup'ik people
say it s the middle of everywhere. It's always been
fascinating to me to take a shot of trying to understand
some of what these elders know. What they know is
really genius in many ways."
|
