Section IL, 1894. [ 113 ] Trans. Roy. Soc. Canada. 



III. — The Innuits of our Anfir C(j(ist. 

 By His Honour Lieut.-Governor J. C. Schultz, LL.D., M.D. 



(Read May 25tli, 1894). 



Among the many Indian tribes of the west, northwest and north, of whicli, on the 

 fifteenth day of July, 1870, the Dominion of Canada assumed the wardenship, there were 

 none more remote, less known and UKire interesting from an anthropological point of view 

 than the aborigines of our northern coast and of the islands of our arctic archipelago. 8neli 

 meagre knowledge as we possessed of the interesting people, who, from Melville Peninsula 

 to Herchel Island, inhabited these icy coasts and islands, was principally' derived from such 

 incidental records of their [lursuits, habits and character as were to be found in the journals 

 of those courageous and indefatigable searchers for a northwest passage, to whom, except 

 in some notable cases, all else, save that supposed waterway, was of little moment. Hence 

 we find, as is usual when only one side of the narrative of rencontres is told, the imiiression 

 created that these isolated savages deserved, in a measure, the character which had, in the 

 early years of Norwegian and Icelandic discovery, been given them by voyagers who, if 

 we may believe their own records, murdered some of them in sheer wantonness, and carried 

 off others to die from home-sickness for the barren rocks whence they had been taken, or 

 drowned in vain attempts to reach their native shores by flight in improvised kayacks. 



So much new light regarding this strange people has come to us of late years from 

 missionaries, Danish and Hudson's Bay traders and other sources, such as the cruise of the 

 U. S. steamer " Thetis," that the time has, I think, come for a reconsideration of the 

 estimate which has been formed of a people so homogeneous in appearance, language and in 

 their habits and mode of life, wlui occupy a region more extended than that of any of the 

 aboriginal tribes of North or South America, and who differ so much from all other savages 

 of the new or old world. 



An examination of such records as are available brings us in contact with them at a 

 very early period on the eastern borders of the five thousand miles of coast line which they 

 are known at one time to have occupied, and although this takes us beyond the strict limits 

 of the title of this paper, yet it may be admissible, in view of their apparently common 

 origin and the remarkable homogeneity of which I have spoken. 



The story of "Lief," the son of " I^ric the Red," with his companion " Biorn," and 

 their discovery of Vinland, or Wine Land, is too well known to need recapitulation. 

 " Thorwald," Lief s brother, eager for further discovery, is said to have sailed with Lief"s 

 crew the following year, examining the country to the westward of what was probably the 



Sec. II., 1894. 15. 



