1915] TO UPERNAVIK AND BACK 125 



"I have married them." 



"What did you do?" 



"Vel, he said he vanted her, and I said dat was all 

 right. Now ve vill go." 



Indeed, a typical Arctic romance. No courtship, no 

 prearrangement, no ring, no license, no promises, no 

 love. Could anything be more primitive .^^ 



On the march some thirty miles below Umanak we 

 stopped at "Park-e-to," a rocky cave in the cliff opening 

 at the level of the sea, a historic spot, and one almost 

 sacred in the tales and traditions of the Smith Sound 

 Eskimo. Here for centuries these Northern people 

 have taken refuge from driving winds and snow, have 

 kindled their seal-oil fires in their soapstone lamps, have 

 eaten their raw, frozen meat, and have chanted their 

 weird, primitive songs. Seated there in the shadows 

 thrown by the uncertain light of a torch, one's imagina- 

 tion ran riot, leaping in bounds far back to the early 

 days of man. Where were these people when these 

 hills were covered with giant trees, when the valleys 

 were bright with flowers and the fiords were rippling 

 with warm sunlight.^ And whither did they retreat 

 when all the Northlands were buried deep in ice, ob- 

 literating the highest mountains and flowing south to 

 the latitude of New York.^ Did they follow the retreat- 

 ing edge of the glacier, ever pushing on in pursuit of 

 the polar bear, the musk-ox, the walrus, the caribou, and, 

 having forgotten the warm Southland, are they now 

 content to dress in skins, live on meat, and abide here 

 always? Or did they arrive from the Far East by way 

 of the fabled Atlantis and then scatter northward, 

 westward, and southward to North America? This we 

 do know — that the Eskimo of to-day is not closely 



