214 THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 
these astounding quantities of matches and tobacco and of tea are not 
for the members of the expedition, but are to pass slowly into the hands of 
the Eskimos, being the staple trading medium of the country. 
The Arctic Expedition left New York in May, 1908, financed for its 
work by the American Museum of Natural History and in part by the 
Geological Survey of the Canadian Government. It proceeded overland 
to Edmonton, the world’s greatest fur market, then two thousand miles 
northward by the Mackenzie River route to the coast. The final good-by 
was sent back from Athabasca landing which was the jumping-off place as 
regarded communication with the Museum. The main object of the 
expedition is to make a scientific study of little-known Eskimos, especially 
those tribes east of the Mackenzie River, and to obtain, of course, as much 
material as possible to illustrate Eskimo life and customs. Secondarily, 
it is to carry on a zoological survey, procuring collections of mammals, 
birds and fish, this work being in the hands of Dr. Anderson. 
In the ethnological work there were plans to investigate two fields, one 
west of the Mackenzie River, the other east. The “‘ Nunatama,” an inland 
tribe of the Colville are probably least known scientifically among the 
Yskimos of Alaska because they never trade directly with the white man, 
getting goods from the Point Barrow Eskimos, who in their turn trade with 
the Arctic whaling vessels. The greatest interest of the expedition, how- 
ever, centers in the tribes east of the Mackenzie at Coronation Gulf with 
its Coppermine River and on Victoria Land north of this. It is known 
that here are opportunities to study tribes wholly uninfluenced by the 
white race. 
Although the desire was to go directly to these eastern Eskimo tribes, 
the final arrangements sent the expedition west to the Colville with the idea 
of returning eastward by whaling ship. The latter plan ingloriously mis- 
carried owing to the fact that no whaling vessel visited the region during the 
whole season, the first time such a thing had occurred during the forty 
years since ships began to visit there regularly. Thus the expedition was 
forced to winter in the lower Colville region. 
Now it happens that the Colville, which is very poor in game, is not the 
place one would choose in which to spend a winter. The year before both 
dogs and Eskimos had starved to death there and many families had moved 
out. This winter the cold came early, ponds were frozen over in August. 
The failure of the whaling vessels meant not only inability to get east- 
ward from the Colville but also that the winter must be passed there without 
sufficient supplies, for only part of the equipment had been taken by way 
of the Mackenzie, dependence being placed on whaling vessels from San 
Francisco to get the remainder to the northern camp. The Museum made 
