106 FOUR YEARS IN THE WHITE NORTH [June 



life of the Arctic, the most interesting and the most 

 valuable of all, the bird which means so much to the 

 Smith Sound native — the dovekie or little auk {Alle alle). 



The long, dark winter has at last passed away. The 

 larder, open to all, is empty. The sun is mounting 

 higher into the heavens day by day. Now and then a 

 seal is seen sunning himself at his hole. The Eskimos 

 are living from hand to mouth. And then, that glad 

 cry, relieving all anxiety for the future, bringing joy 

 to every heart: ^' Ark-pood-e-ark-suit! Ark-pood-e-ark- 

 suitr ("Little auks! Little auks!"). 



As a boy I had found this little wanderer, weak and 

 emaciated, on the coldest and shortest days of winter 

 washed up by the billows on the back shores of Cape 

 Cod. Pine knots, the fishermen called them, and to 

 my question, "Where do they come from?" they could 

 give no reply. Little did I think then that their home 

 was in the shadow of the Pole, and that on the first day 

 of August, thirty years later, high up on the summit 

 of Bushman Island in a driving snow-storm, I should 

 be making wild sweeps with an Eskimo dip-net in my 

 endeavor to ensnare a few for supper! 



As the numberless black-and-white bodies wheel out 

 from the talus-covered cliffs into the fiord, they resemble 

 nothing so much as a gigantic swarm of bees, now black, 

 now a glittering white, as their breasts reflect the rays 

 of the sun. 



Laughing women and children, in anticipation of the 

 feast, hastily gather up their nets and sealskin bags. 

 Pups, pets, and cripples are harnessed to father's old 

 sledge, and the caravan is off for the day. Once at the 

 rookery, the mother takes her position in one of the 

 various holes in the talus used by her ancestors through 



