Alaska: Stranded hunters sail home in makeshift umiaq

SIKU CIRCUMPOLAR NEWS SERVICE

Two Inupiat men from Gambell, Alaska, used garbage bags to return home to their St. Lawrence Island community after the motor on their boat died in rough seas. Their inspiration: the trusty skin umiat that they remembered from the past.

The two men in their 30s, Denis James and Jerry Aningayou, used a raincoat on the top, along with two large garbage bags and two smaller ones to make a sail that they rigged together with four pieces of rope.

Their Global Positioning Unit said they were around 100 km from Gambell. Using their broken motor as a rudder, the men steered home through pelting rain and three metre-high seas. Efforts to search for them had hampered by the bad weather.

But after 50 hours of sailing the two reached home where anxious relatives had been praying for their return.