292 



together in herds on the lichen-covered plateaus at Olriks 

 Fjord, a number of families move up there along the routes 

 already mentioned. Whilst the men are hunting the deer, the 

 women and children catch salmon in some few (certainly only 

 2 or 3) lakes which occur there. These lakes are already 

 covered by ice and the fishing is therefore carried on through 

 holes in the ice by means of an ice-fork. This is one of the 

 instruments which the American immigrants at that time taught 

 the Polar Eskimos. The above mentioned old man, IVIerkrusàrk, 

 who himself belonged to the immigrants, gave Mylius Erichsen^ 

 the following account of their methods of salmon fishing. "On 

 a strong line we fix small pieces of narwhal's teeth or walrus' 

 teeth, then drop it into the water and pull it up and down 

 until we catch the salmon, which we land with a two-pronged 

 fork". The method is well-known at several other Eskimo 

 localities. The fish is eaten either boiled or frozen and is 

 kept in the frozen condition thiough the winter. 



After satisfying its lust for hunting and its desire for 

 reindeer flesh and fish, and after storing the excess of food- 

 stuff in the depots, from which they are only fetched when the 

 dark period is over, the family journeys back again to the 

 coast, where the even winter-ice has already as a rule begun 

 to form. Apart from variations in the time for the appearance 

 of the ice-cover, the sledging on the fjord-ice generally begins 

 in October. The intermediate periods between open water and 

 solid ice, which may last a long time during storms, are actu- 

 ally barren periods, when the hunter is compelled to lead an 

 idle life in the winter-houses until the ice becomes solid; often 

 they are periods of famine when the depots are reduced. 



Then begins the real arctic form of life with hunting on 

 the ice as the main activity. The walrus, white whale and 

 narwhal go out to the ice-free waters and the hunters at the 



1 1. c, pp. 307-308. 



