Journey back in time during Fort Ross State Historic Park's Alaska Native Day

Alaska natives’ mastery of the seas will be among the cultural highlights celebrated at Fort Ross State Park on Saturday, part of a special event commemorating the role of northern islanders in Russian settlement of the coastal outpost two centuries ago.

Expert sea hunters, the Alaska villagers were forcefully recruited by the Russian-American Company to procure the sea otter pelts necessary to successfully establish a fur-trade center in California in the years after Russia occupied Alaska.

The islanders, who outnumbered Russians at the settlement from the beginning, brought with them hide-covered hunting kayaks, or qayaqs, of an ancient design honed over many millennia in the frigid subarctic region, experts say.

They also used a wooden tool called a spear-thrower, or atlatl, that allowed hunters additional leverage, and thus more velocity and power, in their attack upon otters and other sea animals. They hunted so successfully that Fortress Ross, as it was known, had put itself out of the fur business within 20 years of its 1812 founding.

But Saturday, when Fort Ross holds its third annual Alaska Native Day, visitors will have a chance to experience a little of what it might have been like at its peak.

The special event runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and will feature traditional dancing, stories, hat making and foods.

But the first part of the day will spotlight the skills and equipment that made Alaskan hunters so successful, including interactive demonstrations of the tools once used on open water and a chance to paddle a qayaq, though these days they’re covered with nylon or other man-made fabrics instead of animal skins.

So intelligent and refined was their seafaring technology that it would be hard to improve upon even now, said Mitch Poling, a retired college science and math instructor from Port Townsend, Wash. He spent part of his boyhood in Chenega, a village in Prince William Sound that was later destroyed by an earthquake and tsunami, as were all but one of the qayaqs that had been produced there.

“The conditions they were using these in were really severe, and they were designing for survival,” he said. “Survival means a couple things: one, that it could handle really rough conditions; and two, that it maximizes your energy. It was easy to paddle and easy to carry, so it conserves your resources.”

Poling now builds such boats, one in a contingent of craftsman around the Pacific Northwest and Alaska who have worked to ensure the technology isn’t lost despite the transition to motorized vessels last century. When he arrives at Fort Ross this week, he will bring a three-seater to donate to the Fort Ross Conservancy.

The traditional boats were made of steam-bent driftwood - the only wood source available on most southern Alaska shores - lashed together with hide and covered typically with seal, sea lion or walrus skin carefully sewn watertight around the frame, said Ferndale qayaq builder Marc Daniels. He devotes much of his life to reviving the science and art of Alaska boat-making, teaching at culture camps in the Aleutian Islands and running a program called Make Access Iqyax Apprenticeships in Humboldt County.

A key feature of the boats was the vertically split, or forked, bow that, while interesting looking, was fully utilitarian in design.

A narrow, knife-like bottom blade split the water with little resistance, allowing a hunter to move swiftly in pursuit of prey, while the flared, more buoyant upper part prevented the bow from piercing waves, keeping the boat above water in high seas, Daniels said.

“We’re talking about 10,000 years of research and design,” said Andrew Abyo, an Alutiiq artist and craftsman in Anchorage, “so these kayaks are just highly evolved.”

The Alaska natives also made larger, open-deck umiak for transporting cargo. These broad boats spread open as more was packed into them and could carry significant volumes and weights, said Winters resident Lauren Peters, Alaska native advisor for the Fort Ross Conservancy.

Daniels has been building one off and on in recent years at Fort Ross, and will spend some time wood-working during the weekend. He will invite others to observe and help out during the Saturday event.

Peters, whose mother is from King Cove, Alaska, is descended from a Creole blacksmith who is buried at Fort Ross. Her sons will demonstrate use of the atlatl on Saturday.

More information on the event and a schedule of activities is available at fortross.org.

You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan at 521-5249 or mary.callahan@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @MaryCallahanB.