132 J. C. SCHULTZ ON THK 



continent left a northern fringe to occupy country not ftirther south perhaps than the southern 

 tributaries of the Saskatchewan or the northern tributaries of the Missouri and a disabled 

 remnant to continue to occupy the Aleutian Islands, and there learn that which was to pre- 

 serve their race when they rejoined their companions and were forced northward from these 

 homes to their present habitat : hard pressed by the tribes, which having increased, multi- 

 plied and grown strong in the warmer portions of the continent, began those incessant, 

 interminable wars wdiich the discoverers succeeding Columbus found everywhere along the 

 eastern coast, and later explorers found extending to the heart of the continent, they would 

 naturally seek refuge northward by the rivers of the arctic watershed in the bark and 

 wooden canoes which are so like. In form at least, the skin boats which the Russian naviga- 

 tors, Behring, Spangenberg and Tschivikin found in use by the then occupants of the 

 Aleutian Islands. We can easily understand if we accept this theory of the colonization of 

 the arctic shores of this continent, how the bark, and even wood canoe would have to give 

 place to the light skin boat when the northern limit of wood had been reached and passed, 

 and how gladly a hard pressed tribe fleeing for their lives would. If accustomed to the use of 

 boats, seek to at once reach a limit where they could not be followed ; hence the occupation 

 of the arctic coast as a haven of safety and where the arts of the Aleutian islanders could 

 be exercised to procure that abundance of food which, till the white man came, filled the caches 

 and storehouses of the Eskimo nearly everywhere along this extended coast line. 



If we accept this theory there still remains the question as to whether this hegira took 

 place down one or many of the rivers flowing into the Arctic Sea, and though not important, 

 there are reasonable grounds for supposing that it took place down two at least, or three 

 perhaps, of the Canadian arctic rivers, although one, indeed, of the rivers of Alaska would 

 ofter some of the facilities aflbrded by the others farther east. 



Passing from the region of conjecture, we come to the present condition of, and the 

 future possibilities of this interesting people. When they became, on the 15th of July, 1870, 

 wards of our government, the north, western and eastern shores of Hudson's Bay was occu- 

 pied by Eskimo to whom the whale, seal and walrus hunt aflbrded plenty to supplement 

 their land hunt, salmon and other fisheries and their surplus of whalebone, train oil, walrus 

 tusks, white bear, fox and wolf skins were bought by Hudson's Bay traders sent from 

 Churchill on one side and from Moose Factory on the other side of the bay. That devoted 

 missionary, the late Bishop of Moosinee, had already been able at intervals to preach the 

 gospel of Christ and the truth as it is in Jesus had been told, when and where thej- could 

 be reached, to the Eskimo on the west shore as well. Whales, walrus and seals were found 

 in numbers, and a fair field seemed open for that kind of domestication and civilization 

 which had been eflected by the Moravian brethren on the Labrador coast, and similar suc- 

 cesses might have rewarded the eflbrts which were being made by the great church mission 

 societies of England, but, alas, when was the greed of the white man stayed by the consid- 

 eration of the spiritual or temporal welfare of any portion of the Indian race ! The most 

 profitable kind of whales had gradually been driven or exterminated from ofl'the coast from 

 I^ewfoundland to Hudson's Straits, and the remnant had sought refuge with their kind in 

 Hudson's Bay, where they were taken occasionall}^ when they could be attacked by the 

 Eskimo near the shore, but they were still in numbers, however, which gave them the 

 chance of affording for these Indians a permanent supply and a continuance of this valuable 

 species in these waters, but American and other whalers followed them and when it was 



