IN WINTER QUARTERS 127 



and the crew was busy taking down the sails, slacking 

 off the rigging, so the contraction from the intense 

 cold of winter should not cause damage, with a 

 thousand and one details of like character. 



Before the sails were taken down, they were all 

 set, that they might be thoroughly dried out by sun 

 and wind. The ship was a beautiful sight, held fast 

 in the embrace of the ice and with her cables out, 

 but with every sail filled with wind like a yacht in a 

 race. 



While this work was going on small hunting parties 

 of Eskimos were sent to the Lake Hazen region, but 

 they met with little success. A few hares were secured, 

 but musk-oxen seemed to have vanished. This troubled 

 me, for it raised a fear that the hunting of the former 

 expedition had killed off the game, or driven it away. 

 The Eskimo women set their fox traps all along the 

 shore for five miles or so each way, and they were more 

 successful than the men, obtaining some thirty or 

 forty foxes in the course of the fall and winter. The 

 women also went on fishing trips to the ponds of the 

 neighborhood, and brought in many mottled beauties. 



The Eskimo method of fishing is interesting. The 

 fish in that region will not rise to bait but are captured 

 by cutting a hole in the ice and dropping in a piece 

 of ivory carved in the shape of a small fish. When 

 the fish rises to examine this visitor, it is secured with 

 a spear. The Eskimo fish spear has a central shaft 

 with a sharp piece of steel, usually an old nail, set in 

 the end. On each side is a piece of deer antler pointing 

 downward, lashed onto the shaft with a fine line, and 

 sharp nails, pointing inward, are set in the two frag- 



