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Kayak and Canoe Design Bulletin Board
Re: Suction and such...
Posted By: Nick Schade In Response To: Re: Suction and such... (Ian Johnston)
Date: Wednesday, 6 October 1999, at 10:14 a.m.
You can be certain that there was the occasional young renegade who thought he could build a better kayak than his father. Occasionally he would be right and everyone would incorporate his ideas.
I find it hard to speculate from here as to how or why a people hundreds of years ago came up with a design innovation. Actually the speculations is easy, but learning the real reason is impossible without an interview with the designer.
I do think that the real reason often gets lost or forgotten in tradition. If you ask for the explanation according to the oral tradition you are likely to get a reason which might sound like superstition even if there is a good technical reason.
For example the bifid bow looks somewhat like the jaws of a salmon. Oral tradition could say that this is to honor the salmon spirits and thus assure a safe return. If you don't have access to modern analysis techniques, emulating creatures native to the environment is a good place to seek inspiration for design innovations. The original innovator may have been copying a salmon jaw for performance reasons, but later builders may not have fully understood what he was trying to do. So the tradition become more spiritually based than the original material performance reasons. But again, this is pure speculation.
> Do you think that this was the original intent of the design, or was it
> the by-product of it? I just ask out of curiousity. The reason I ask is
> that it seems like a lot of theory for such a practical people.> In anthropology class I saw a film, shot in the '40s or '50s, on an Innuit
> family still living their traditional life. Most of their time was spent
> just trying to survive, which they did remarkably well. But they seemed to
> live by routine and experience. (What worked yesterday, will work today
> and again tomorrow.) This is a fact of life for people living in such a
> harsh environment.> This film was shot over a years time and the best part was that the man
> built a kayak during this time. He had saved material over the previous
> year and all during the filming. When he was ready he built it remarkably
> fast. He built the same type of boat that these people had built for
> years, as all the problems were already worked out, with modifications
> only to accomadate his gathered material. After he finished this kayak he
> was filmed caribou hunting in it. Talk about your "extreme
> sport"!> My point is that when your life, and that of your entire family, is on the
> line you will usually go with the tried and proven technique. So where did
> such an advance come from? It seems like a pretty advanced step to just
> pop up by a "what would happen if" process.> This question can't be answered now as anyone with this info would be long
> gone, but what are your ideas?> Ian
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