Everything Has a Name
Especially the Stuff You Don't Own
Meet the tools.
Modern kayak gear has names like DeckMate Pro X2 and HydroGrip Ultra. The next generation will not remember those names that were so important to you. Greenland's hunting gear has names that were in use millenia before anyone thought of a trademark. They were short and practical, and each one meant exactly one thing.
Our source is P. Scavenius Jensen's Den grønlandske kajak og dens redskaber. It's lovely and thorough, and it's almost entirely in Danish, which, as we established in the Count, is a language that counts like it lost a bet. Sorry Danes. The Kalaallisut words below are Jensen's. If you see them spelled differently elsewhere, nobody is wrong. The spelling rules changed in 1973 and the kayaks didn't care.
The toolbelt, reviewed:
patit: the paddle. It's narrow, simple and made of wood, maybe bone at the edges, and it has outlived every "revolutionary blade design" since. Carbon wing-paddle people, please form an orderly queue for the comment section.
unaq: the harpoon. The headline act. Everything else on deck exists to support it.
ernangnaq: the "wing" harpoon. A harpoon with wings. Not metaphorical wings, actual bits sticking out. The jagged, sawtooth-like inner edges are to keep a bird in place until the hunter arrives.
tukaq: the harpoon point. It comes off the shaft and stays in the animal. It's small and it does the real work.
aleq: the line. One word, four letters, sealskin, no drama. Compare "12 m Dyneema throw line with reflective tracer and ergonomic bag".
asaloq: the line stand. Danish calls it kajakstolen, "the kayak chair", although nobody sits on it. It's a little stand on the foredeck where the harpoon line lies coiled and ready. If the coil tangles, the hunter goes over with the harpoon line.
avataq: the hunting float. A whole sealskin inflated like a balloon, so whatever you harpooned couldn't dive and disappear. It's the original fitness tracker: it shows exactly where your catch went.
norsaq: the throwing stick. It adds a longer lever to your arm so the harpoon flies further and harder. It's also the one tool here you've probably heard of, because rollers took it into competitions.
nugfit: the bird dart. It's for when a seal is too much and you'd rather have a duck. It's a skewer with ambitions.
anguvigaq: the kayak lance. The big one, for finishing the job.
kaput: the small lance. Yes, really. The small lance is called kaput. Whoever named it had a sense of humour that has lasted a few centuries, and we respect that deeply.
portaq: the rifle bag. When firearms arrived, the kayak adapted rather than retiring. It got a waterproof sealskin holster, because the hunter wasn't going to let a gun get wet.
talutaq: the shooting screen. Jensen's Danish word is skydesejl: a white screen at the bow so a seal sees a floating bit of ice instead of a man with a rifle. It's camouflage by pretending to be the weather.
aqut: the skeg. Jensen's word translates as "rudder", but look at his drawing and it's a skeg: a small fixed fin under the stern that keeps the kayak going straight in wind and waves. No cables, no foot pedals, nothing that jams halfway across a fjord. So the old hunters did want help going straight, and they got it with a fin and no moving parts. Rudder fans, you may leave the comment section now. Skeg fans, try not to be smug about it. (Be a little smug.)
Notice something? Each of these is a single tool with a single name and a single job. In a narrow boat on a cold sea, everything on deck has to earn its place.
Now look at your own deck. A pump, a compass, a float, a 2 part paddle in a fancy bag not possible to assemble while holding on to your kayak in pounding waves, let alone under water, a phone in a dry bag, a second phone in a second dry bag, the bungee holding a paddle, the other stings holding everything else, and a lunch that has been dunked twice. We're not judging. (We're judging a little.)
Your homework: give your own gear honest, one-word Greenlandic-style names. Our submissions: the spare paddle that has never been used is museumaq, and the watch you "forgot" on your PFD to look cool in places with no tide is decoraq. Wonder what a GPS would be named? Any ideas?
Drop yours in the comments. Bonus points if you know a better modern spelling for any of Jensen's words. We'll happily be corrected,.