Since 2005, Seawolf has been teaching the traditional art of skin-on-frame kayak building to people around the globe. Some 600 kayaks later, we’re still refining and improving our designs. We’ve met some incredible builders and paddlers from Finland to California.
Kiliii Yüyan
Expeditioner & Designer
Kiliii Yüyan is a boat builder & photographer with Nanai/Hézhé and Chinese ancestry and a passion for all things wild. He has guided expeditions by land and sea and paddled many regions of the world.
Kiliii builds dsais (kayaks) from his Nanai traditions, and has also spent years with other traditional kayak-using communities of the North, learning building skills from circumpolar Iñuit communities. Today he designs skin-on-frame kayaks for modern paddlers and is helping to return the boatbuilding tradition to its cultural roots.
As a photographer, Kiliii illuminates the stories of Indigenous communities, wildlands, and the Arctic. See his work at www.kiliii.com.
Addie Asbridge
Builder & Instructor
Addie built her first kayak with Seawolf in 2015. She has since built dozens of kayaks (she's lost count) and taught over 200 students through Seawolf's workshops.
While dabbling in various post-grad jobs, she got the chance to build a kayak in Finland with Kiliii. Not long after that, she was teaching workshops from Orcas Island to Berlin. As is the case with all things you love, sharing the beauty of woodworking and incredible utility of traditional technology through Seawolf’s skin-on-frame workshops is the best part of this job.
Addie builds all custom orders and kayaks in Seawolf's inventory, and organizes and teaches workshops. She brings a fierce cribbage game.