Kayaks are one of the most ancient forms of transport on earth. There are references to them in oral histories dating back almost 4000 years and variations of the written name begin to appear in Turkish writings around 800 a.d. Between that date and 1700 a.d., similar words for small boats began to pop up in Russian, Mongol, Hungarian and various Slavic languages, proof that this most efficient of boats was spreading over much of the world.

The Aleut and Inuit peoples, or Unagan, as they prefer to be called, are credited with the invention of kayaks. They were first made from driftwood lashed together with animal sinew and covered with tanned seal and sea lion hide. Joints were sealed with boiled seal oil, rendering the boat watertight, and because of its natural construction, it bent with the waves.

The Unagan called their boats “Iqax” and thought them to be alive, equal partners on the water and during a hunt. Later boats were called Baidarkas, and open versions, known as umiaks, were the precursors of today’s “sit-on-tops.”

Wouldn’t it be great to know who first watched a log float by and came up with the idea to hollow one out and ride along with it? It would be even more interesting to know who came up with the idea of building a log out of wood and animal hides—now that is human ingenuity.

I have a long held theory that to an animal, a kayak is just another log floating by, and this allows kayakers to observe wildlife in a manner most people never experience. A kayak is the ideal blending of man with nature.

While driftwood and animals skins have for the most part been replaced by fiberglass and plastic, the basic design of the kayak remains unchanged. It is a perfect example of the old adage: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

Perhaps it was early sea voyagers who brought these small boats with them on larger vessels to exotic ports around the world, or perhaps they were born locally out of necessity. Whatever the reasons for their origins, kayaks or boats similar to what we in the west call kayaks, can be found in the most remote parts of the world today.

In 2006 I wrote two articles for WaveLength about wooden boats on the Mekong River in Vietnam and Cambodia. More recently I have watched similar boats operating on the Niger River in Mali, West Africa. Either the kayak is the most stable of all ocean-going vessels, or an incredible zeitgeist was at work to introduce such a boat so far away from its origins. Perhaps one day we may even find boats older than those of the Inuit, long buried beneath desert sands, proving that our great deserts were once great oceans, and that the kayak was born and evolved in places other than the far north.

In Africa, as in Vietnam, I watched traditional builders laying out hulls of indigenous wood and was surprised to find that the process was almost identical in both countries. Multiple scraps were fitted together in a hodgepodge of mismatched pieces, all held together with wooden wedges driven perpendicular into both pieces across the seam. Most western boat builders would cringe at this, but it is an ancient technique that works. I have inspected hundreds of such craft in both countries and found them all to be watertight and water worthy.

In Vietnam, I took one of these dugouts for a quick spin on a tributary of the Mekong and found it to be quite tippy, just as a narrow beamed kayak would handle. As soon as I stepped out of it, a small boy no more than five hopped in and paddled out into the stream making me look like an amateur, proof that it is not necessarily the boat but the handler that makes it water worthy.

In Mali, these boats are called pirogues, and they are, for the most part, about seventeen to eighteen feet long with a tapered bow and stern, both of which curve slightly upward. They are about two to three feet in the beam and most have a wooden bench seat. From a distance they resemble an open kayak. While I watched some people paddling them with a double ended paddle like we do in the west, they were generally pushed along with a long pole, and some even raised a sail for propulsion when the weather permitted it.

I only had one opportunity to try out a pirogue, and I found it responsive and quick. Its owner laughingly told me it had to handle easily to avoid the hippos frequently found in the Niger River. While he said this in jest, I knew the truth of what he was saying, as hippos are the number one cause of death in Africa. A responsive boat can mean the difference between life and death.

The Niger was dotted with individual fishermen in their pirogues, casting oval nets on the water. The fishermen usually stand to do this, and the effort of slinging a large net is not an easy feat in such a narrow boat, proving how stable it must be. Many people were just out on the water for a day’s paddling.

I showed one fisherman a photo of myself paddling a kayak off the coast of southern California. He pointed to it and said, “pirogue,” then asked if I was a fisherman.

What makes a kayak or pirogue, or whatever name you might have for it, unique, is the singular relationship between the handler and the boat. Other forms of transport rely on technology and equipment to operate it, while the kayak responds to the nuances of body movement almost entirely. More than driving a car, and more than riding a horse, it is the one form of transport where person and equipment are one.

At a number of places along the Niger River in Mali you can now rent a pirogue for the day or go out on the river on a guided tour. There are even companies that take a group of tourists out for a day’s paddling on the river. While I have not been there yet myself, I have been told that day touring in a pirogue is a hot new business on the Gambia River.

The thing that strikes me the most when I see these third world crafts is the fact that with all our modern technology, and with how other forms of transport such as autos and airplanes have changed in design over the years, the basic form of a kayak remains the most efficient way to move a person through water, as it has been for almost 4000 years.