THE ESKIMO AND CIVILIZATION 



197 



be still living, one near the mouth of the Mackenzie River and the other 

 some thirty or forty miles southwest of Cape Smythe. There are also about 

 twenty individuals who are descended from the Cape Smythe tribe through 

 one parent. The fact which explains the constancy of the census figures 

 is that the extermination of the caribou in the interior of Alaska has depopu- 

 lated the highlands and driven the survivors of those districts to the coasts. 

 It seems probable too that the mixture of Indian blood has given the Eskimo 

 of the interior a greater power of resisting effects of civilization. At an\- 

 rate the fact is that most members of the present coast population of Alaska 

 are the descendants of the inland Eskimo and the more pure coast popula- 

 tion has been practically exterminated. 



Eor the Mackenzie delta, reasonably accurate estimates can be made. 

 A careful reading of Sir John Richardson's account of his Arctic search 



Ancient stone house, Simpson Bay, like several others in southwestern Victoria Island. 

 The present Eskimo of Victoria Island did not build these houses and do not know that their 

 ancestors did ; they believe them the work of spirits before human beings lived on the island 



expedition of 1S4S shows that there must have been a population of over 

 two thousand upon the three-humlred-mile stretch between C^ipe liathurst 

 and the Mackenzie River. The mounted police census shows that there 

 arc now forty surviving. Roth Alaska and the Mackenzie delta during 

 this period of progress have been in continuous contact with white men. 

 It is interesting therefore to compare their condition with that of the Eskimo 

 of Prince Albert Sound who were visited by Captain Collinson and Captain 

 M'Clurc in 18r)2 and 1853. They do not give us a census of this tribe, but 

 it seems certain from their account that there cannot have been o\'er two 

 hundred. In the spring of 1911 I found the population of this tribe to be 

 about two hundred and twenty. In other words, tluring the period in which 



