A finished frame ready for skinning on the shore of Pelly Bay

How to build a traditional boat:
Specific technical details I learned would be things like recessing the lashings. For seven years, at that point, I had been saying it's not that important to recess the lashings under the skin, because it doesn't make that much of a bump in the surface or the boat. Within the context of hunting, and the boats that we were building, it did make a difference. And they were quite emphatic that lashings that contacted the water or would be in a place where the skin would abrade because it made a bump, were important to recess. Now, I still don't recess the lashings on all of my boats, but I'm aware of the necessity when it is important. That's made me change my way, selectively. Other technical things that I learned, they had different knots, different methods of lashing. The pace of work was different.

Mostly the differences that I learned from them were attitude and philosophy. They multi-tasked. I've never seen people be able to do so many things and juggle so many things at once, other than maybe my wife would right after our first son was born.

The elders are very adaptive. Josie had a tool kit that had a hand plane, a knife, a hammer, couple of battered screw drivers and vice grips. And in there among all of that stuff that was kind of battered up and obviously worked a lot, was a big hank of caribou sinew. And I took a closer look, and one of the hammer handles was wrapped with sinew. If you have to repair a crack, caribou sinew is like their equivalent of duct tape. It just sits in there right next to the modern steel tools. They are completely comfortable using that in the same context as they would be using other tools.

	Ooliak, one of the youth is learning to make a traditional sealskin float. This involves skinning the seal without piercing the hide, then preparing it and sewing it to be airtight. Notice the other interested youth who have gathered around and begun to participate. This is an example of the way knowledge is traditionaly passed on.

Another thing I noticed was that whatever tool is closest is the one that winds up doing the job. They're not tool junkies. You know, I meet people that come into my shop and they say, 'Well, I'm going to embark on this project when I get a Veritas low-angle plane, because then I'll be able to do it.' If one of the Elders didn't have their Veritas low-angle plane, they'd pick up a pocket knife, or a piece of sandpaper to do the same job. Or for that matter, a rock. I watched them using rocks as field expedient clamps. I watched them using the back of an office chair as a bending form

Traditional ways, nontraditional materials:
On that subject, there was a little incident in the first year that we were there. There's one part on the bow of the kayak that's called the Ira, which means eyes. And it's two little loops, way out on the bow deck, for catching the end of the caribou lance so it doesn't slide off your deck.

We struggled for almost a day to make those bloody Ira with hand files and hand drills, and we even did some repair work on the bandsaw to do the outside shape. We were really struggling. When we were just getting started on the second Ira, the Elders discussed among themselves for a few minutes, and they came back to us. The youth translator said, 'The Elders say that they have a better material than this. It can be bent much more easily, and it won't crack and it won't rot. It's from the plastic barrels.' They were saying that polyethylene would make much better Ira. And if they were hit, they'd just bounce, and they wouldn't rot and they wouldn't crack. We could make one in about ten minutes.

We found ourselves in the position of having to explain why caribou antler was better than polyethylene oil drum material. But they were absolutely right. It is a better material for what we were doing. We had to go through the whole thing about, 'Well, the tourists are going to want a genuine experience. And polyethylene just isn't part of that expectation.' You know, it's a genuine Arctic experience in the year 2000, but maybe that's not what they're looking for.

All of the participants in Robert Morris' project assembled right after the launch and 1 hour before our plane left.

Importance of preserving the old ways:
It's about cultural self-respect, cultural identity. The great works of art that inform you who you are, and what you are. The songs, the dances, the poetry, and the literature, and the material things, all tell us who we are. In the Arctic all of that's been under attack for several generations now.

Some of the younger people, they're not really self-aware of the value of what Inuit culture's brought to the table of human experience. I am. And I guess my part in all of this is shouting out how wonderful the material culture is, and by extension the whole culture, by bringing the news into the south. I have focused on boats, but certainly it touches on everything. These are wonderful, incredible inventions by brilliant people who did things that you couldn't imagine doing. There is a culture there, and a people that are still there, and they are worthy of our respect and our fellowship.
--------------------------
4 pages: | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |