TURNING KOGMOLLIK FOR SCIENCE 219 
it had little to it but dry fibres and was strongly impregnated with sea salts (other 
than NaCl). When we had finished this we were really better off for the stuff seemed 
to make us sick. We then ate sealskin, some deerskin we had along for sole leather 
and our snowshoe lashings, in fact every edible thing except clothes. Fortunately 
we had seal oil. With about a cupful of oil a day one does not feel in the least 
hungry but lazy, sleepy and weak. All of us found it a little difficult to take the oil 
straight. We soaked it up in tea leaves, deerskin with long hair on it and ptarmigan 
feathers. 
Before they reached the end of these fifteen days some of the Eskimos 
were taken sick, and did not recover for weeks. These were indeed 
most discouraging times. Mr. Stefansson was not able to go far from the 
camp because of the sick Eskimos, there were seven people and six dogs 
to feed, meaning a consumption of rather more than a deer per day, while 
there was no light but dim twilight for hunting, and every southeast wind 
brought fog, every southwest wind, a blizzard. To add to other causes 
for depression all were feeding wholly on lean meat in Arctic cold where 
health and spirits depend on the presence of fat in the food. Also it was 
at this time that the oil for lights gave out: 
At this time we had left only about a quart of oil, which was soon gone and we 
were without lamplight all the time the sun was away. This was especially incon- 
venient for the women, as sewing in the dark is difficult. "There was more than once 
a whole week, too, when I made no entry in my diary because I could not see. One 
could write for about two hours at noon, but I was usually hunting at that time, 
always starting out before daybreak. 
In addition, we were getting badly worried over the non-arrival of Anderson and 
his party. They should have been home by Christmas. We were especially afraid 
that on the very day they left us in the blizzard they might have ventured too far 
off shore on the ice and have been carried with it to sea. The sick Eskimos were 
growing despondent. I used to see deer almost every clear day (there was fog or 
blizzard two days out of three) but on the clear days it was so absolutely breathlessly 
calm that deer could hear you and you could hear them from a quarter to a half mile 
away. I therefore never got a shot at them. An Eskimo always looks upon such 
protracted ill luck as caused supernaturally. Taboos had been violated. They 
knew I had eaten deermeat the day I killed a wolf, but worse than that they knew 
of more than one case of my breaking the Sabbath. They were therefore certain 
they should never be able to get any deer. One day, however, I shot a fawn. This 
seemed to break the spell to the notion of the Eskimos. 
In early January lack of food made some sort of a venture necessary, 
so a start was made for Langton Bay. Here they found the cache of 
blubber broken into by a wolverine which had eaten a hole through a two- 
inch plank. Small consolation was gained by the fact that they caught 
the wolverine, although it was excellent eating after its high living on deer 
meat and bear meat. Disappointed here, there was nothing to do but 
keep on to the “Alexander”; reaching the old house by the wreck they 
