Make: Technology on Your Time Volume 11

RETROSPECT The 1977 Gulf of Alaska Baidarka Expedition

By George Dyson

Thirty years ago, the now-ubiquitous sea kayak was a rarity on the Pacific Northwest coast. The fleets of Aleut baidarkas that had swept through Southeast Alaska in the 19th century had vanished without a trace. In 1977, a small group of boatbuilders decided to bring the baidarka back to life ...

1. Two hundred years ago, the coastline of Alaska was governed by the Russian-American Company, a monopoly chartered in 1799 by Emperor Paul under the posthumous instructions of his mother, Catherine the Great. The Russian colonization of North America, beginning with Vitus Bering’s ...