770 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



persons, who are distributed among seven settlements. The Kikker- 

 ton Eskimos, who alone once manned eighteen boats, representing a 

 population of about four hundred and fifty heads, now number only- 

 eighty. The two fishing-stations are situated on Kikkerton, an island 

 on the east coast of the sound. When the Eskimos who have spent 

 the summer up the fiord return at the beginning of October, they 

 eagerly offer their services at the station, for they receive in payment 

 for a half-year's work a gun, harmonicum, or something of the kind, 

 and a ration of provisions for their families, with tobacco, every week. 

 Every Saturday the women come at the blowing of the horn into the 

 station-house, to receive their bread, coffee, and sirup, and the precious 

 tobacco. In return, the Eskimo is expected to deliver a piece of 

 every seal he catches into the kitchen of the station. 



The time for the fall catching commences as soon as the ice begins 

 to form. If the generally stormy weather permits it, the boats leave 

 the harbor to look out for the whales, which are accustomed to go 

 along the east coast of the sound toward the north. During the last 

 years the catch was very unprofitable, for only a few whales were seen. 

 As the ice forms very quickly, the boats must be brought back to the 

 land by the end of October or the beginning of November. Since 

 whales have become scarce, the stations have followed the business of 

 collecting seal blubber and skins, which they buy from the Eskimos. 



A lively traffic springs up as soon as the ice has become strong 

 enough to allow sledges to pass from shore to shore. The sledges of 

 the stations are sent from one settlement to another, to exchange 

 tobacco, matches, coffee, bread, etc., for skins and the spare blubber 

 which the Eskimos have carefully saved up. The natives themselves, 

 who need useful articles like cooking-pots, lamps, etc., collect quanti- 

 ties of hides and blubber, and come to Kikkerton to supply their wants. 

 Eskimos come over from the southern part of the west coast of Davis 

 Strait to exchange bears' skins for articles they want. The winter 

 passes quickly away amid this stir of business, till everything comes to 

 a stop in April. For now the seals cast their young, whose white, 

 long-haired skin forms an important element in the clothing of the 

 people. As the hunting-season only lasts a month, the natives put the 

 time to a good use ; and the old settlements are quickly deserted, for 

 the seals are to be found most abundantly in the fiords and among 

 the rough ice, which are the least productive places in winter. | 



When the sun has reached such a height that the snow begins to 

 melt in favored spots, a new life begins at the station. The skins 

 which had been collected in the winter, when frozen, are brought out 

 of the store-room and exposed to the beams of the sun. A number of 

 Eskimo women busy themselves, with their half-moon-shaped knives, 

 in cutting the blubber from the skins and putting it away in tubs. 

 Others clean and salt the skins, which are likewise packed away. The 

 men also find enough work to do after the catching of the young seals 



