Anchorage Daily News

Consider this bleak scenario.

Cast: You.

Setting: A cold and desolate tundra, alternately swampy or frozen, far from anything resembling the "comforts of civilization."

Materials available: Small sticks, grass, rocks, anything you can separate from an animal.

Your mission: Survive.

Centuries before the resourceful television detective "MacGyver" hit the airwaves, Alaska's Yup'ik people faced just such a set of circumstances. Yet they not only survived but flourished.

An exhibit titled in English "Masterworks of Yup'ik Science and Survival" shows how they did it. A collaboration between the Anchorage Museum and the Calista Elders Council, it opened in Bethel last year before coming to Anchorage, where it will be on display through Oct. 26.

Where previous museum shows have focused on the artistic vision, craftsmanship and beauty of design found in Alaska Native handwork, "Yuungnaqpiallerput (The Way We Genuinely Live)" stresses the technological ingenuity behind the parkas, footwear, fishing equipment, cooking gear and so forth.

While many of the objects are elegant to behold, their functionality may not be evident to the casual viewer. Take the conical bentwood hunting hats. The geometric flow of the shape and lively designs and ornaments on them first catch one's attention. The long visor and wide cut tell us that these were made to keep sunlight out of the wearers' eyes and keep water from spraying their face and running down their necks.

But when you put one on, something unseen manifests itself, says Dave Nicholls, the museum's curator of exhibitions, who has tried it.

"It amplifies your hearing," he said. "I can hear someone talking at the other end of the gallery, voices that would be inaudible without the hat."

Visitors to the exhibit have the chance to experience it themselves, since spare hats are available to try on. They're included in one of the exhibit's many hands-on interactive components. Others include:

• Viewing a glaring screen to see how snow goggles improve visibility on sunlit ice.

• Listening for the mating calls of underwater seals by putting your ear to a paddle.

• Sewing a waterproof stitch after watching an instructional video.

• Smelling seal oil and discovering its many uses.

• Feeling how grass liners increase the warmth of fish-skin mittens.

• Building a model qasgiq (communal men's house) using Lincoln Log-like pieces.

"Yuungnaqpiallerput" makes its point about the integration of science, craft and daily life with several such activities and hundreds of items on view.

Find Mike Dunham online at adn.com/contact/mdunham or call 257-4332. Qayaq (Kayak)

• SCIENCE INVOLVED: Marine engineering

• PROBLEM: Make a fast, sturdy, oceangoing craft for hunting and transport using only sticks and animal skins.

• SOLUTION: A framework of thin, flexible ribs and stringers, laced at the joints with sinew; use a special stitch to connect the skins, and caulk the seams with a mix of seal oil and moss.

• MODERN EQUIVALENT: A folding kayak.

• BENEFITS OF THE ORIGINAL: The laced-wood frame allows for a certain amount of "give," relieving stress and letting the boat flow with the shape of the waves. The large hole in the bow helps break the waves ahead and lets you hook an arm through so you can haul the boat while leaving your hands free to hold other items. The wide hull promotes balance and stability. The broad, water-shedding deck is big enough to hold a large seal or a set of sled runners that can be used to slide the kayak along the ice. As opposed to store-bought models, every old-time kayak was built to the specific proportions of the individual, assuring the owner of a perfect fit for maximum power, comfort and efficient size-to-weight ratio.

Ilulirpiit/Taluyarpiit (Fish traps)

• SCIENCE: Biology

• PROBLEM: Winter's coming. Do you have enough food put away? Blackfish are swarming, but it would take a lot of jigging to catch enough for a meal using a hook and line.

• SOLUTION: Build a pair of funnels out of sticks and secure them on a level riverbed. The big outer mouth narrows and fits into a long second basket, which is closed off on the end. The fish swim in and, with few exceptions, stubbornly maintain their direction in the current. Through a quirk of piscine psychology, they can't seem to figure out how to get back out the same hole they came in. Wait a while, haul up the trap, dump out a gunnysack-load of fish, and freeze for later use.

• MODERN EQUIVALENT: The frozen-seafood case at the grocery store.

• BENEFITS OF THE ORIGINAL: Fresh, really fresh. And free. You can sleep or do something else while the trap is fishing for you, and you never have to wonder if you're eating farmed fish. Cavget (Toggling harpoon tip)

• SCIENCE INVOLVED: Mechanical engineering

• PROBLEM: Poke a pointy stick in a marine animal, and it may pull free and swim away.

• SOLUTION: Make the point so it separates from the spear shaft with the impact of the strike. A sinew string is attached to the point in such a way that when the animal starts to move, the point pivots and hooks in more securely. Without the shaft attached, a point is less likely to be dislodged by a fleeing seal, walrus or beluga.

• MODERN EQUIVALENT: Still in use. Metal has replaced ivory, stone or bone for the point, and plastic jugs sometimes replace inflated seal bladders for floats, but the design is much the same.

• BENEFITS OF THE ORIGINAL: You don't need to be right next to the game to nail it. Using the nuqaq (see above), you can hook onto the target at a distance. With the point attached to the shaft by a coiled sinew string, the shaft will follow the animal, sending up a rooster-tail, revealing the location of the quarry, even when it dives. If you miss, the well-balanced shaft will float upright, easy to spot and retrieve. Nuqaq (Atlatl)

• SCIENCE INVOLVED: Physics

• PROBLEM: Game is standing 100 feet away, laughing at you, and you can throw your spear or dart only 60 feet with any accuracy.

• SOLUTION: Use a stick to extend your arm another foot or two. A notch secures the butt of your weapon until you're ready to let fly. Other notches and pegs assist your grip and, with a little practice, let you calibrate distance and direction by feel. Now you can fling that harpoon dead-on to a target up to 100 yards away.

• NOTE: These are still used for hunting by people living at the mouth of the Yukon River.

• MODERN EQUIVALENT: Rifle.

• BENEFITS OF THE ORIGINAL: "Atlatls are about as safe as a projectile weapon can be. You can't kill someone with 'didn't know it was loaded' stupidity or an accidental discharge. Range is short, and a miss will not fly for miles or penetrate brush or buildings." (World Atlatl Association) Also, "shooting" these does not damage your hearing, they can be burned for warmth in an emergency, and they are unlikely to be confiscated by Fish and Game. Igauget (Snow goggles)

• SCIENCE INVOLVED: Optics

• PROBLEM: Bright sun on ice and water makes it hard to see and can even lead to snow blindness.

• SOLUTION: Wooden eyepieces that fit snugly to the face, darkened inside to minimize reflected light, with deep, narrow, horizontal viewing slits. The slits reduce glare from above, like a baseball cap, as well as from below and -- by confining the transverse motion of the light waves to one plane -- thwart the battering the retina would take if the full field of light were hitting it. In addition, narrowing the range of view concentrates your gaze on one spot. Working like a pinhole camera, it has the effect of magnifying and focusing the view.

• MODERN EQUIVALENT: Polaroid sunglasses

• BENEFITS OF THE ORIGINAL: They don't scratch, they don't fog up and they float.

VIDEO: MEASURING FOR A KAYAK: Noah Andrew Sr. explains how each component of a kayak is made in proportion to the kayaker's anatomy. In Yup'ik with English subtitles.

adn.com/life YUUNGNAQPIALLERPUT (THE WAY WE GENUINELY LIVE): MASTERWORKS OF YUP'IK SCIENCE AND SURVIVAL will be on display through Oct. 26 in the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, 121 W. Seventh Ave.

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