Qayanek is passionately dedicated to antiquity research, documentation, preservation, and construction of the traditional Native American Yup'ik Caninermiut Qayaq.

Qayanek builds kayaks as close as possible to how they were designed in traditional mud houses. Of the two basic Yup'ik kayak designs, the less documented eastern version, built in Kwigillingok, Alaska, may be the more elegantly engineered.

The Caninermiut Qayaq has 2 bow, 4 stern, and 5 cross members that are tediously extracted from the bends of driftwood spruce stumps. All measurements are custom anthropomorphic body measurements. Qayanek's real seal skin on frame kayak is caulked using seal oil and moss, with grass strands backing the inner seams.

Frank Andrew's son and student, Qayanek master traditional qayaq builder Noah Andrew Sr., sits next to the Qayanek built Loon qayaq adorned with one of his father's two traditional deck design. 2006

Smiling and frowning carved loon heads adorn two inner supports.Additionally, the crushed red ocher rock rubbed frame is pegged together with special traditional spruce pegs. Some of the larger pegs have ivory wedged locking heads.

The Pai, or cockpit you sit in, is pegged and tied together with white spruce root. The rest of the entire frame is lashed together with seal skin cured in urine. The seal skin deck is predominantly pigmented with one of Yup’ik elder Frank Andrew’s ancestral loon designs.

The traditional detail in this qayaq far exceeds the well documented contemporary construction level found in the famous 1976 western Cup’ik kayak of Hooper Bay observed by David W. Zimmerely, which used string, bolts, nails, canvas, and lamination. Someday, if Qayanek finds the correct traditional white rock used for deck design pigmentation, and sews the skins together with braided caribou sinew, we will have remarkably matched the ancient mud house qayaq construction technique.