MURDOCH.] SNOW HOUSES TENTS. 83 



guns. 1 Small storehouses of snow or ice are built to contain provisions. 

 In the autumn many such houses are built in the village, of slabs of 

 clear fresh-water ice about 4 inches thick cemented together by freezing. 

 These resemble the buildings of fresh- water ice at Iglulik, described by 

 Capt. Lyon. 2 



Other temporary structures of snow, sometimes erected in the village, 

 serve as workshops. One of these, which was built at the edge of the 

 village in April, 1883, was an oblong building long enough to hold an 

 umiak, giving sufficient room to get around it and work, and between 6 

 and 7 feet high. The walls were of blocks of snow and the roof of can 

 vas stretched over poles. One end was left open, but covered by a canvas 

 curtain, and a banquette of snow ran along each side. It was lighted 

 by oblong slabs of clear ice set into the walls, and warmed by several 

 lamps. Several men in -succession used this house for repairing and 

 rigging up their umiaks, and others who had whittling to do brought 

 their work to the same place. 



Such boat shops are sometimes built by digging a broad trench in a 

 snowbank and roofing it with canvas. Women dig small holes in the 

 snow, which they roof over with canvas and use for work-rooms in which 

 to dress seal skins. In such cases there is probably some superstitious 

 reason, which we failed to learn, for not doing the work in the iglu. 

 The tools used in building the snow houses are the universal wooden 

 snow-shovel and the ivory snow-knife, for cutting and trimming the 

 blocks. At the present day saws are very much used for cutting the 

 blocks, and also large iron knives (whalemen s &quot;boarding knives,&quot; etc.) 

 obtained from the ships. 



Tents (tupgk}. During the summer all the natives live in tents, 

 which are pitched on dry places upon the top of the cliffs or upon the 

 gravel beach, usually in small camps of four or five tents each. A few 

 families go no farther than the dry banks just southwest of the village, 

 while the rest of the inhabitants who have not gone eastward trading 

 or to the rivers hunting reindeer are strung along the coast. The first 

 camp below Utkiavwlu is just beyond the double lagoon of Nunava, 

 about 4 miles away, and the rest at intervals of 2 or 3 miles, usually at 

 some little inlet or stream at places called Se kqluka, Xake drixo, Kuos- 

 u gru, Nuna/ktuau, Ipersua, Wa lakpa (Eefuge Inlet, according to Capt. 

 Maguire s map, Pad. Hep. for 1854, opp. p. 186), Er mvwlii, SI naru, 

 and Sa kamna. It is these summer camps seen from passing ships 

 which have given rise to the accounts of numerous villages along this 

 coast. There is usually a small camp on the beach at SI nnyu and one 

 at Ime kpun, while a few go to Pernyu even early in the season. 



As the sea opens the people from the lower camps travel up the coast 

 and concentrate at Pernyu, where they meet the Nuwuumiun, the Nuna- 



1 Firearms can not bo carried into a warm room in cold weather, as the moisture in the air immedi 

 ately condenses (in the cold .surface of the metal. 

 1 Journal, p. 204; see also the plate opposite p. KH of Parry s 2d Voyage. 



