Boat Sled, With Walrus Ivory Runners
date: label: Accession Date
content: 9 Feb 1882
name: label: Donor Name
content: Edward W. Nelson
notes: label: Notes
content: FROM CARD: "ILLUS. IN BAE 18TH AR, PT. 1; PL. LXXVI-1; P. 208 ALSO IN NM REPT, 1894; FIG. 243, P. 554."
label: Notes
content: This object is on loan to the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, from 2010 through 2027.
label: Notes
content: Source of the information below: Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center Alaska Native Collections: Sharing Knowledge website, by Aron Crowell, entry on this artifact https://alaska.si.edu/record.asp?id=136 , retrieved 7-31-2018; see web page for additional information: Boat sled. The boat sled has runners carved from whole walrus tusks and crosspieces of wood, lashed together with leather thongs. Holes at the front edge of the runners are for attaching a pull rope. Men use an angyapik [open skin boat; see the similar/related umiaq and angyak of the Inupiaq, Yup'ik and Sugpiaq] covered with split walrus hides and fitted with sails, paddles, and outboard motors to hunt walrus and bowhead whales in open water leads among the sea ice in winter and spring. Hauling the boats to open water can be a difficult task, especially when the ice piles up into high pressure ridges. Boat crews clear paths for their boats and pull them out to the edge of the ice on sleds, by hand and with snow machines.(1) Roger Silook remembered the use of traditional sleds like this one: "They use two small sleds under the boat, one at each end. The little sleds were only about a foot-and-a-half long and about the same width. The used ivory for runners, which was very slick on ice."(2) Boats sleds could also be used for hauling other loads. Toboggans for hauling walrus meat were made from slats of whale baleen.(3) 1. Oozeva 1985:137 2. Silook 1976:32 3. Oozeva 1985:133.
label: Record Last Modified
content: 3 Feb 2022
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: St. Lawrence Island, Bering Sea, Alaska, United States, North America
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Eskimo, Yupik, St. Lawrence Island
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 82A00003
label: USNM Number
content: E63587-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Sled
physicalDescription: label: Length - Object
content: 46 cm