MURDOCH. 



SEAL HUNTING. 269 



with the rifle and retrieving harpoon, traveling many miles among the 

 ice hammocks in search of such holes. When a seal shows his head he 

 is shot at with the rifle, and the hunter, if successful, secures his game 

 with the harpoon. This method of hunting is practiced throughout the 

 winter wherever open holes form in the ice. A native going to visit his 

 nets or to examine the condition of the ice always carries his rifle and 

 retrieving harpoon, in case he should come across an open hole where 

 seals might be found. The hunt at this season is accompanied with 

 considerable danger, as the ice pack is not yet firmly consolidated and 

 portions of it frequently move offshore with a shift of the wind, so that the 

 hunter runs the risk of being carried out to sea. The natives exercise 

 considerable care, and generally avoid crossing a crack if the wind, 

 however light, is blowing offshore; but in spite of their precautions 

 men are every now and then carried oft to sea and never return. 



The hunters meet with many exciting adventures. On the morning 

 of November 24, 1882, all the heavy ice outside of the bar broke away 

 from the shore, leaving a wide lead, and began to move rapidly to the 

 northeast, carrying with it three seal hunters. They were fortunately 

 near enough to the village to be seen by the loungers on the village 

 hill, who gave the alarm. An umiak was immediately mounted on a 

 flat sled and carried out over the shore ice with great rapidity, so that 

 the men were easily rescued. The promptness and energy with which 

 the people at the village acted showed how well the danger was appre 

 ciated. 



At this season of the year a single calm night is sufficient to cover all 

 the holes and leads with young ice strong enough to support a man, 

 and occasionally before the pack comes in the open sea freezes over. 

 In this young ice the seals make their breathing holes (adlu), &quot; about 

 the Bigness of a Halfpenny,&quot; as Egede says, and the natives employ the 

 stabbing harpoon for their capture. At the present day this is seldom 

 used alone, but the seal is shot through the head as he comes to the 

 surface, and the spear only used to secure, him. Seals which have been 

 shot in this way are sometimes carried off by the current before they 

 can be harpooned. As far as I can learn, this practice of shooting seals 

 at the adlu is peculiar to Point Barrow (including probably the rest of 

 the Arctic coast as far as Kotzebue Sound), though the use of the una, 

 as already stated, is very general. 



This method of hunting can generally be prosecuted only a few days 

 at a time, as the movements of the pack soon break up the fields of 

 young ice, though new fields frequently form in the course of the season. 

 After the January gales the pack is so firmly consolidated that there 

 are no longer any open holes or leads, and when the spring leads open 

 young ice seldom forms, so that this method of hunting is as a rule con 

 fined to the period between the middle of October and the early part of 

 January. 



With the departure of the sun, about the middle of November, begins 



