Umiak

The umiak is an open vessel once widely used throughout the arctic for moving freight and groups of people. Sometimes the umiak was called the women's boat. According to Dyson, when the Russians dominated the Aleut sealskin trade, they forbade the use of boats larger than the baidarka for fear of armed boarding parties approaching their larger sailing ships in a revolt.

Umiaks are still being made and actively used for subsistence hunting in various parts of the Arctic, including subsistence whale hunting in Alaska. These boats are no longer used in Greenland, although boats with umiak-like construction, used with motors, are found in some locations.

This is a picture of an historical umiak in a west coast museum and of a modern recreation.