In 1576 the artist Luc d’Heere, while exiled in England between the years 1568 and 1577, painted a water color of an Eskimo.

In 1580 the Frobisher Expedition brought the first drawings of Eskimos hunting from kayaks to Europe.

The picture on the left, Stefanssons Kort, ist a copy from 1670 of the original dated 1590. The original is lost. The copy is from the book "GRONLAND I TUSEND AR" by Erik Erngaard, published by Lademann Publishing company, Kopenhagen 1972.

1587 the Englishman John David wrote after a voyage to Greenland about the admirable way of the eskimoes in dealing with the kayak, sleds and dogs.

1605 a traveler on a Greenland expedition, “Resen” produced a map of Greenland after the Stephaniuss map, with the pictures of two kayakers.

Greenlanders catching, ca. 1619/1620, from the first edition of "Die XXVI Schiff-Fahrt: Beschreibung. Decsription of a very hard and dangerous journey of captain J.Müncken in 1619 and 1620 .

Captain J.Münken was captain of the first danish expedition with winterabode in the today Churchill named area after being unsuccessfull in trying the north-west-passage. The expedition was lead by Jens Munck, because from the crew of 64 person 62 ones including the captain had been ill with scorbut and trichinosis. Noteworthy is the place of their camp which was a settlement area of the prae-dorset-cultur 4000 years ago (look at the map of dorset-cultur). Levinius Hulsius had published the travelogue at 1650. He was a dutch historian and publisher in Frankfurt and Nürnberg , publishing own and otherone`s storys. You says that the participants and informants of the journey let mystic conceptions and ideas of monsterlike settlements at the edge of the earth being part of their reports, so maybe a kayak as huntingboat hasn`t been reality.
References: With friendly permission of the Schifffahrtsmuseum Bremerhaven

Though the expansion of the Russian fur traders on the alskan side from 1799 onwards, i.e. their settling throughout the Aleutian Islands, did influence the trading relations, the form of the boats used there, the Baidarkas, stayed unchanged and was not influenced by the invasion of the Russians. Techiques and and equipment used for hunting the animals at sea are identical to the ones in Greenland.

n 1654 painted a Norwegian a picture of a group of abducted Greenlanders. Included in the painting is a plaque on which he notes that Greenlanders drive about the sea in little leather boats. The text is in German. The man to the left with the bladder dart (kayak horpoon) was Hiob, beside him is his daughter Cabelau, further on to the right the mother Kunelig and the 13 year old son Sigoko.

The original of the picture is located in the National Museum in Kopenhagen.

Copie from book"Grønlændernes Historie fra Urtiden til 1925" Verlag Namminersornerullutik oqartussat/Atuakkiorfik, Nuuk 1991

In 1721 the Danish preacher Hans Egede sailed to Greenland to search for the old Norsemen. On his arrival he reported of being accompanied by kayaks. Hans Egede: “Before we landed, about two miles from land, a number of boats with wild men appeared and followed us until evening, when we arrived at the port. To me they looked miserable. May God have mercy on them.”“

In 1726 three kayak frames washed ashore in Iceland. This is taken as proof that the East coast was inhabited.

During the years 1577-1697 the Danish crown ordered a number of expeditions to Greenland to secure it as a colony and sphere of control over its fishery. In the process, some Innuit were, generally against their will, "taken along" to Danemark. Their qayaks also were brought, in which they had to demonstrate their handling ability before guests of the king. The concept "qayak" and the term "Eskimo" were then not in usage.In the publication "Old and New Greenland Fishery and Whaling" the qayak , in connection with those
demonstrations, was described in the following manner:

The translation

There were still five persons left in good health when an Spanish deputy came to the Danish court. The king wanted to please him and introduced him to the citizen of his nations: the inuits. He allowed them to show how to handle the kayaks. To realise the consistency of the shuttles you have to imagine a weaver’s chair leading the thread. The boats are constructed with parts of bones, ten or eleven feet long and about one finger broad, drawn over with furs of seals and whales, and bound together with sinews. The trestle of a boat has a round opening at the top with the diameter of one person. The boat is peaked forward and backward according to the broad of the boat. The stability of the boat is granted by its ends, where the lasts come together and are combined. The opening which exists from above has the profile of the boat downward, the rest is closed by the upper-deck. You can compare circular form. The vehicle is constructed lightly but stable enough to keep straight against the power of the roaring waves. When the hunter sits down he stretches his legs under the fore-deck. They plug the opening with clothes, that are made of furs. They stop up the sleeves too, if they are knocked down – it often happens - the water can pour in nowhere neither into the boat nor into the clothes.

That’s why they always keep over the water and during stormy weather they are able to bring themselves into safety, even better than bigger ships. They only need a small scull (paddle) five or six feet long ( one foot = about 30 cm with regional differences) half a foot broad on both sides. At the same time the scull (paddle) serves them as a weight-bar to keep their balance and they can row with the scull (paddle) on both sides.The deputy of the Spanish court was deeply surprised, when he saw the agility and the speed of the kayak. They paddled with such a mobility, often in disorder, that he was confused. Nevertheless they didn’t crash into one another.
The king was eager to know, if a boat with 16 rowers was able to keep the speed of a kayak. The rowers had to make strong efforts to hold the speed.
The Spanish deputy presented some money to each inuit. They used the money to buy textiles to dress themselves like the Danish people. So they were walking along with feather hats, boots and spore and they also offered the king further services


The measurement 1 Schues corresponds to 30,48 cm, however with easy geographical differences.

Abstract of Cornelius Gijsbertsz Zorgdrager `s book " old and new fishery and whale-catch in Greenland " (dated 1723) by Abraham Moubach, and translated by Erhard Reusch from the Dutch. The book was published as a photo-mechanical reprint in 1975 at bookstore and second-hand bookshop Horst Hamecher in Kassel, produced by the publishing house Anton Hain KG in Meisenheim/Glan. KG .
"Nation" in the above text refers to the Greenlanders

In 1770 David Cranz, a missionary of the Herrenhut Brotherhood, described in the Historica Groenlandia the “men’s boat”, the Greenland kayak and declared that there exist 9 different techniques of the Eskimo roll.

David Cranz was missionary and teacher with the Herrnhuter priests. He was the first one to describe life and culture of the Eskimos. He did not use the name Eskimo at that time. “History of Greenland”, Part I and II, 1752, Second Edition. The picture is a copy out of the book “Kultur und Landschaft am Polarkreis “ Page 40,
by Prof. Heinz Barüske, The original of the picture is contained in the books “ History of Greenland”, 1752.

Thule – Inussuk – and remnants of the Dorset culture mixed and spread to eastern Greenland. Within the Inussuk culture the kayak developed in a process of adaptation after about 1500 BP into the elegant vessel that we are now familiar with. The settling of the Norseman Eric the Red, 928 BP,and his heirs had no influence on either the hunting techniques, the umiak or the kayak..

On July 30, 1888 Fridtjof Nanssen landed on the East coast near Angmassalik and met with kayak paddling Greenlanders, which at that time had no contact with Europeans.

The picture is a copy from the book „On Snow shoes through Greenland“ by Dr. Fridtjof NansenI, !. Edition1889 page 356. Verlagsanstalt Hamburg. The text within the picture reads: “Several kayaks where flying one behind the other like darts towards the South” ( a photographyfrom A. Bloch).

About 1950-60 changes in the economy, the impact of Europeans, the use of motorized boats, the further development and use of the kayak ceases.