Boat Culture as Island Identity
My heart swells fit to burst and there are tears in my eyes. I’m going home, I think and I realize it has been a year since I have been back. I’ve never been away this long. I see the trees rise out of the water in front of me, Basswood and Hermit islands on the left, the mainland on the right, and Madeline directly in front of me. The ferry roars underneath my feet and the wind whips my hair about my face; I’ve never been able to stay in the car during the ferry ride, you’ll find me at the front of the boat with my eyes forward saying my hellos to the lake.
Madeline Island is one of 22 Apostle Islands in Lake Superior, the largest freshwater sea on the planet. Madeline is home to a permanent population of 200 people and, at 14 miles long and 3 miles wide at the widest point, is very, very small. It is the only Apostle Island that is inhabited, the rest belonging to the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore and many of them to the Gaylord Nelson Wilderness Area. I have spent every summer of my childhood on Madeline Island, starting before I was even born. I grew up in the woods, in the meadows, and on the beach. But most of all I grew up on the water.
There is no island without water to encompass it. The island cannot exist without the water and the sense of place one gets on an island is indelibly tied to that body of water. There is no way to talk about a sense of island identity without also discussing a sense of identity and belonging with water. Water is ever-present. It is part of daily thoughts and lives, it is part of every plan islanders make because it is always there, governing the weather and dominating the landscape. The water becomes a larger part of identity than the island itself does and each person living there forms a relationship with the water.
The relationship starts with boats. Boats are the mediator between humans and water. When your body connects with the boat you are no longer a human with two arms and two legs. You are something beyond human; the boat becomes a part of your body and suddenly you have extra appendages. Maybe it’s a canoe and you aren’t alone in the boat and there are two of you who are now part of one large, oblong body. Or maybe it’s just you in a kayak and your legs have been replaced by this beautiful, sleek oval that slices through waves and you no longer have hands but a long paddle. Or maybe it’s a sailboat and you’ll have a keel and a rudder and a sail and they’re all part of you. And then you aren’t really a human in a boat anymore. You’re much more than that, you are a part of this body of water and you can feel the wind and the water at your fingertips and you can fly.
Each island culture around the world has a unique boat culture. Just as it is impossible to discuss the island without the water, it is impossible to discuss island culture without boat culture. Boats, the process of building them, their utilization, and their importance in
daily life, are key components of the island identity. Each island community has designed boats that function perfectly in their specific environment; there is a reason kayaks were created in the Arctic, dhows and lateen-rigged sailboats are used in the Indian Ocean, and canoes are common in the Pacific. They are manifestations of the relationship between humans and their surroundings.
When I studied abroad in Tanzania last fall, I spent time in Zanzibar, the semi-autonomous island nation off the coast of Tanzania. To some extent, Zanzibar has been changed as a result of the strong tourist presence on the island; there has been intense commodification of the culture and focus on tourism as the main economic import. Even so, there is still a rich boat culture on the island.
The traditional boat used on Zanzibar is a lateen-rigged sailboat called a dhow. Dhows which is built by hand at so-called “universities,” schools at which islanders live and build boats. Dhows are used for fishing, generally going out overnight and returning early in the morning. They are an intrinsic part of the Zanzibar identity; show a picture of one to any mainland Tanzanian and they will tell you that that is a boat they build on Zanzibar. One evening in Zanzibar, I kayaked to a small island off the eastern side during the sunset, just as the dhows were leaving for a night’s work. I will never forget the sight of 6 dhows sailing off to the east against a burnt orange backdrop of clouds, each one tilted at exactly the same angle as the wind carried it to open water. For someone from Zanzibar, returning to the island on a dhow carries the same sense of returning home that I feel on the ferry ride to Madeline Island.
My connection with the island, my identity and sense of place, has many layers. There is the layer of water, the layer of island, the layer of boats. But there is also an overarching sense of identity that is not just mine, but one that belongs to everyone on the island, and to everyone on islands everywhere. That means that even if you don’t speak the same language you can communicate with other island people. Your identity may be tied to different boats and different cultures, you may live on different bodies of water, have different beliefs and religions, but you are all water people. The island identity is unique and the physical manifestation of that identity is the boat culture perpetuated by each one. Yet even in these unique cultures there are universals and that is part of the beauty of the human story; that even in difference we can find common ground.
I want to expand my knowledge of boats beyond that of the globalized culture of fiberglass and plastic boats. Through the exploration of the different ways in which boats are crafted and used around the world, as well as the place boats hold in human lives, I will gain a deeper understanding of the human connection to the sea and how boats have impacted the human story. Throughout human history boats have carried humans home, both to new homes and old. On long journeys, boats have even become homes. Without boats, many of the places humans today call home, many islands, would never have been found. Something this integral to the human story must play an important role in our identity and our sense of place. I know it does in mine.
onesmallfish 