34 H. P. STEENSBY. 
height of above 4 metres and an under surface of 6°5 metres square. The 
real time for hunting is the summer half of the year, or, to put it more 
exactly, the period from May to December". During these months the 
Eskimo families live scattered on different hunting grounds. When, in the + 
spring, the time for the breaking up of the ice approaches, the tent, umiak 
and kayak are packed on the dog sledge, and brought to the outermost 
skerries. If the ice outside these is not broken up, the men hunt reindeer, 
hares and other game on land, and afterwards carry on seal hunting from 
the kayak; while the women and children collect eggs. Towards the end of 
June, according to Косн, and after June 25th, according to TURNER, the 
seals, which have been wandering northwards, are less numerous. Now the 
whole family sails again to the mainland and settles down at the various 
rivers to carrv on salmon fishing during July and August. Then comes the 
time for going inland to hunt from the kayak the reindeer swimming in 
herds across the rivers. This hunting is continued until the rutting season 
has begun and the males have become lean. The season is now so far 
advanced that ice has already begun to form along the sea coast, and it is 
necessary to resort to the coast before the running water freezes. At the 
sea coast, where they settle down for the winter, they live for a time on 
the deposited meat of the reindeer, and of the small game which is caught in 
traps, until the ice-covering on the fresh waters is strong enough to enable 
them to fetch on dog-sledges all the spoil of the reindeer hunt. Consequently, 
from November to May, they live at the winter settlements, as regards the 
Moravian-Brethren-Eskimo this means the missionary station. At this period, 
while the sea is still open, seal hunting is first carried on from a kayak, 
while afterwards, when the ice begins to form, the seals and White Whales 
enclosed in openings in the ice are hunted, or nets are set, and still later, 
net-hunting ceases and hunting on ice is carried on. But ice-hunting is 
evidently of comparatively slight importance in Labrador. Here the most 
profitable methods of hunting are seal and White-Whale hunting from a 
kayak, and the autumn-hunting of reindeer. 
The Polar Eskimo. 
We are here using the name Polar Eskimo, a name prevalent in Danish 
literature, to indicate a small group of Eskimo, numbering about 200 souls, 
who live on the north-west coast of Greenland between 76° and 79° N. lat. 
This the northernmost group of all the inhabitants of the earth, was dis- 
covered by Joan Ross in 1818, and in the following century they had for 
a long time only very irregular intercourse with the white race. But from 
1891 to 1909 during which time PEARY undertook his famous expeditions 
1 Н.В. Косн, pp. 160 sqq.; Turner, Г, pp. 202 sqq. 
