Sum Dum Bay 



ran ashore to fit a block of wood on the cutwater of 

 our canoe to prevent its being battered or broken. 

 While Captain Tyeen, who had had considerable ex- 

 perience among berg ice, was at work on the canoe, 

 Hunter Joe and Smart Billy prepared a warm 

 lunch. 



The sheltered hollow where we landed seems to be 

 a favorite camping-ground for the Sum Dum seal- 

 hunters. The pole-frames of tents, tied with cedar 

 bark, stood on level spots strewn with seal bones, 

 bits of salmon, and spruce bark. 



We found the work of pushing through the ice 

 rather tiresome. An opening of twenty or thirty 

 yards would be found here and there, then a close 

 pack that had to be opened by pushing the smaller 

 bergs aside with poles. I enjoyed the labor, however, 

 for the fine lessons I got, and in an hour or two we 

 found zigzag lanes of water, through which we pad- 

 dled with but little interruption, and had leisure to 

 study the wonderful variety of forms the bergs pre- 

 sented as we glided past them. The largest we saw 

 did not greatly exceed two hundred feet in length, or 

 twenty-five or thirty feet in height above the water. 

 Such bergs would draw from one hundred and fifty 

 to two hundred feet of water. All those that have 

 floated long undisturbed have a projecting base at the 

 water-line, caused by the more rapid melting of the 

 immersed portion. When a portion of the berg breaks 

 off, another base line is formed, and the old one, 

 sharply cut, may be seen rising at all angles, giving it 

 a marked character. Many of the oldest bergs are 



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