The history of kayaking is not as murky as people would like you to believe. Some people believe that kayaking originated when people crossed over from Russia or Asia to the Americas. Perhaps this has some truth; however, the first recorded kayakers were no sport enthusiasts. The first kayakers were Inuit who lived up in the cold artic waters of Canada and Alaska and southwest Greenland. These kayakers used the kayaks to more easily maneuver in the water so that they could catch their meals—seal, salmon or the like, no fish was too big or small for the aggressive and master kayaker (maybe not too many whales, though).
The first people to use the kayak didn’t use fiberglass or aluminum or titanium or carbon—materials often used to construct the bodies, frames, seats and paddles today. No, back then the only materials easily obtained was the bits and pieces of animal hide and driftwood. The Inuit, then, used wood frames lined and layered in seal skin to construct a floating flotilla of death, used to assault and attack underwater victims until death. There are few Inuit who still have the knowledge of building these types of kayaks, but replicas and originals do exist today telling of the hardships of such a challenge. The Europeans who sought to mimic the Inuit used cloth and wood frames at first. These molds worked well but lacked the glide-ability of sealskin. Later in the middle years of the 1900s, fiberglass replaced wood and cloth while even later, plastic replaced even these.
The Europeans used the models for not as such serious intentions as the Inuit up north, whose lives depended on a catch and kill to feed their families. As we westerners are wont to do, recreation seemed more interesting. The first person that thought of kayaking as a serious and sportive undertaking was John MacGregor. His prototype, the Rob Roy fifteen years before the 20th century, debut the first hobby kayaking. Ten years later, MacGregor started his Canoe Club and had the very first boat race serious in the 1870s. It was sixty years later that we saw kayaking become part of the Olympic Games, with divisional races structured at one thousand meters and up. Single, team and country events make up the venue today. Often, kayaking is combined with white-water rafting to give an element of danger and surprise not found on lagging rivers or babbling streams.
The Inuit didn’t go too far from land in their kayaks, akin to a dabble around a small island or coast for fun today. They would often hunt along the shores, getting close into land and into the nooks and crannies where the big fish like to hide. The kayak was molded to the body of the wearer so that the fit was perfect, almost part of the skeleton. In fact, the kayak fit so well that the person was sewn in before going out to sea. This kept the cold water out and (if you’ve ever heard of the Eskimo Roll—righting a flipped sea kayak with paddlers still attached) enabled the paddler to right himself without falling out or dealing with cold temperatures. The interesting history of the kayak shows us today that not much has actually changed from the near perfect design of the Inuit.
Tags: History of Kayaks
