I just wanted to build one kayak; I didn’t have the money to buy one. I’d never even been in one before, much less built anything out of wood (other than a bird house). But then I discovered the incredible variety of kayak forms from the Arctic Tradition, and I suddenly ‘had to have them all.’ Curiosity has a strong unrelenting grip, and what is more human than the desire to learn, create, and document?

Today, I write books on Arctic kayaks and build full-size replicas of them for sea-trials and comparative studies. Museums have been good to me, letting me in to take photographs and extensive measurements of their kayaks, and I’ve thought about how to reciprocate in a meaningful way … and about what to do with fifty functional kayak replicas. This lead to the opening of the Lincoln Street Kayak and Canoe Museum, where one can see the largest, most complete assembly of Arctic hunting kayak forms, as well as other vessels. Come visit, even if you don’t like kayaks. (I don’t always like kayaks).