64 



The Ottawa Naturalist 



[Vol. XXXII. 



boys practicing archery occasionally knock over a 

 longspur or a snow bunting, or a tiny shore bird, 

 which go into the pot indiscriminately to gratify the 

 pride of the juvenile hunter rather than as any 

 great contribution to the food supply. The Eskimo 

 cook usually boils biids, this being the most satis- 

 factory method of treating sea-birds. Their 

 custom of removing the entrails and boiling them in 

 the pot with the rest of the bird is not inviting to a 

 fastidious appetite, although I have been gravely 

 informed by a sophisticated native that it is "all 

 the same macaroni." Ptarmigan in general are 

 grateful to the civilized taste, but a delicacy that is 

 net so attractive is a ptarmigan intestine filled with 

 bitter young willow buds, dropped for a minute into 

 boiling water till it swells up like a wienerwurst, and 

 eaten hot. The Arctic "sabd," which seems to be 

 favoured more in winter, when no vegetable food has 

 been seen for months, is the first stomach or rumen 

 of the caribou when it happens to be filled wiih 

 freshly-chewed reindeer-moss or Cladonia lichens. 

 This is frozen whole and sliced off very thin, the 

 gastric juice supplying the acid, and a liberal mix- 

 ture of seal-oil the salad dressing. The caribou 

 stomach is sc'dom eaten except when filled with the 

 succulent reindeer-moss, and when it contains woody 

 grass-fibre is usually discarded. This food may 

 properly be classed as "pre-digested," and under 

 certain extenuating circumstances, such as a trail 

 appetite, a long siege of one-course rations of meat, 

 anything "different" may have some attractions, but 

 few white men venture to experiment with it. The 

 two almost omnipresent species Pediculus capitis 

 and P. vesimenti (the Konmk of the Eskimo or 

 "cootie" of current literature) are very commonly 

 eaten, not so much for flavour or food value, I 

 imagine, as a convenient means of disposing of these 

 elusive parasites. 



The fish of the Arctic are not very many in 

 number of species, but are numerous as to in- 

 dividuals, and practically all of them are good, well- 

 flavoured, and of firm flesh like most fish of cold 

 waters, various species of whitefish, salmon trout, 

 lake trout, pike, grayling, herring, smelt, loche, 

 connies, etc. As long as the fish are fresh, it 

 matters little whether they are boiled, or spitted on 

 a stick and roasted before the fire. Most Eskimos, 

 however, will persist in boiling fish with the scales 

 on, which makes eating rather unpleasant. Many 

 are eaten sun-dried or smoked, without salting, and 

 if dried quickly in suitable weather, are very good. 



One thing which surprised me was the extensive 

 eating of raw, frozen fish, and still more, how 

 quickly the habit is picked up. I have never been 

 able to endure a cooked fish unless it is well done, 

 without a trace of rawness, but I ate my first piece 



of raw, frozen fish with relish, and thought that they 

 generally tasted like raw oysters, and fully as 

 palatable. 



The frozen fish, like sticks of stovewood, are 

 brought into the warm house just long enough to 

 soften the skin, then the skin is cut around the gills, 

 and down the middle of the back, a corner loosened 

 and the skin ripped off by a simple pull. The flesh 

 is then cut away in chunks of "eating size," or eaten 

 like corn on the cob, the skeletal portion of the fish 

 being thrown away like the corn-cob. For an out- 

 door lunch on a cold winter day, a frozen fish does 

 not appeal to me I always felt chilled inside and 

 outside for an hour afterward. Frozen fish-roe is 

 also relished by the Eskimo, and is very nourishing: 

 the Eskimo say it "makes you warm inside." Seal 

 or whale-oil is eaten with frozen fish as preferred, 

 but fall "connies" or salmon-bellies are rich enougn 

 without. 



In many parts of the Eskimo country, the seals 

 form almost as important a part of the food supply 

 as the caribou. West of the Mackenzie, seal- 

 hunting is not quite as important as formerly, but 

 seals are still hunted for skins to make water-boots 

 and other footgear everywhere. Among the Copper 

 Eskimo, from Dolphin and Union Straits and east- 

 ward, the seal is still more important, and practically 

 the whole population eat little else from the first 

 of December until May, during which period the 

 people move out on the ice and live in snow- 

 houses on the sealing grounds. In spite of the scarcity 

 of fuel, the seal-meat is usually eaten cooked, boiled 

 in stone pots over blubber-lamps, for fortunately the 

 seal has such an abundance of blubber that there is 

 plenty to cook the meat as well as heat the habita- 

 tions fairly comfortably. Indeed, in many winter 

 sealing camps more blubber is brought in than can 

 be used in proportion to the meat from the chase, 

 and large slabs are thrown away. Towards spring, 

 the surplus blubber is saved, and preserved in seal- 

 skin bags for the next autumn. 



Seal-meat contains a great deal of blood, and 

 hais a very dark colour, and the older animals gen- 

 erally have a rather fishy taste, so that very few 

 white men acquire a real liking for it, at least 

 enough to eat it when there is any other kind of 

 meat around. The young seals have tender meat 

 with scarcely any ill flavour, and the liver of most 

 seals is very fine, equal to the best calves' liver, but 

 occasionally an eld specimen of the common Rough 

 Seal ( Phoca hispida ) has such a strong, pungent 

 odour, as if soaked in coal-oil or gasoline, that even 

 an Eskimo dislikes to eat it. 



I think that most Eskimos at heart prefer their 

 own native foods, although they like to have certain 

 white man's feeds in the house and on their tables, 



