Skin-on-Frame Inuit Sea Kayaks: Harvey Golden and Rockwell Kent

Rockwell Kent, 20th century illustrator and painter who traveled to Greenland to paint and make art during a long and sometimes tumultuous career, is perhaps best known for his illustrations of Moby Dick, among other classics. Kent got into serious trouble with the U.S. State Department during the McCarthy era for his communist leanings (hey, this was the 1930's), and in a pique of anger, left much of his art to the people of the Soviet Union.

Harvey Golden's several-hundred page study of the hunting kayaks of Greenland, a good adjunct to Kent's books on Greenland, including canvasses of kayak hunters at work in fiords.

Golden's is the first major publication on native kayaks since Adney's and Chapelle's The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America - itself an authoritative work that includes a chapter on skin-on-frame kayaks, photos, and some amazing planset drawings.

Golden's reproductions of traditional kayaks are meticulous works of authenticity. Golden is both craftsman and historian; he lofted and took lines off original Inuit hunting kayaks, built most if not all of the kayaks he lofted, and paddled them.

Greenlanders' hunting kayaks were remarkably narrow, long and fast, some measuring 18' by 17". To many sea kayakers, they are craft of stealthy sublime beauty. Golden has done much to preserve the legacy of elegant and efficient design, high speed and robust rolling tendencies.

For more sea kayaking content, read Sea Kayaking Dot Net, a most-days-of-the-week sea kayaking blog.