The First Kayak Fishers
by Ross C.
After doing a bit of Encyclopaedia and Internet reading, I discovered that Kayaks were originally built and used thousands of years ago by the Thule people who were ancestors of the Inuit people now living in Northern Labrador and who are broadly called Eskimos by many people of European descent.
The Thule people constructed large whaling boats called Umiaks from frames of walrus ribs covered with walrus hide and capable of holding twenty or more hunters. Faster and lighter "single hunter" Kayaks or Qajaqs constructed from a driftwood frame covered with sewed walrus or seal skin were used to assist in the whale hunt as well as for hunting walrus, seal, sea birds, and caribou.
The hunters in the Umiaks and Kayaks would locate a Bowhead whale and then thrust hand held harpoons into it with inflated sealskin floats and small parachute-like baffles attached by lines so it could be slowed down and followed until it tired and re-surfaced to breath.
The hunters in their Kayaks would then quickly paddle in and use many more lances and harpoons to eventually kill the animal in what must have been a particularly bloody and dangerous battle for the Kayakers not to mention the poor whale. The dead Bowhead whale was floated and towed back to camp for processing ashore by the tribe. As survival in remote Arctic regions depended on hunting and fishing for food as well as to obtain materials for constructing shelter, transport, and weapons, there was certainly no such thing as "catch and release" back in those days.
The Inuit Kayak
The Kayak was uniquely developed by the Thule people to suit the harsh Arctic environment with the hunter sitting in a single opening in the deck of the Kayak with a seal-skin "skirt" fastened from around his waist to the deck. This "skirt" prevented water from coming into the cockpit as well as allowing the skilful Kayaker to perform an Eskimo roll to recover the craft after any capsize.
Following a successful fishing or hunting trip it was common for the returning Kayaker to perform a celebratory Eskimo roll as he came into sight of the women and children waiting on the shore for the men to return.
When propelled by a double-bladed paddle, the lightweight but seaworthy Kayak had a certain mystique about it and was significantly faster and easier to manoeuvre than any other type of single-person paddle-craft previously built. Upon discovery by Europeans it aroused much interest and was subsequently widely copied by seafarers around the world.
In 1866 the Scotsman John McGregor founded the world's first Kayak and Canoe club. Kayaking as a sport quickly developed and generated such a following that in 1936 Kayak racing events were introduced at the Berlin Olympic Games and have been fiercely contested at the Summer Olympics ever since.
It is from the ancient yet clever and practical heritage of using Kayaks for hunting and fishing, with the addition of modern strong and lightweight materials inspired by competition, that today's Kayak Fishing has ultimately evolved. Fortunately, now that this sport is practised for enjoyment instead of necessity, it is a much safer and less gruesome pastime for we modern Kayak Fishers than it used to be for the Thule and Inuit people.