94 On the trail of vanishing birds 



Superintendent for the Territories. We found the people who live 

 in outposts like Aklavik are among the most cheerful, the most 

 friendly, and the most helpful human beings on the face of the 

 earth. 



We learned that most of the Indians and Huskies (as the 

 Eskimos are called in that region) were out in the delta hunting 

 muskrats. The season would end on the tenth of June and then 

 they would come trooping in, by boat and canoe, until the sum- 

 mer population of a thousand or more natives had assembled. 

 Then, they told us, the sunlit nights would resound to the beat 

 and the chanting voices of the drum dance, not to mention the 

 incessant howling of the sled dogs, the whine of outboard motors, 

 and the blare of the mechanical phonograph at the North Star 

 Inn, a native gathering place. Now all was relatively tranquil and 

 if we tacked a blanket across our bedroom window, to keep out 

 the midnight sun, we might catch up on our sleep before the 

 great disembarking. 



Next morning we talked with Mr. Roberts of Imperial Oil and 

 learned that the recent flood had carried his entire stock of gaso- 

 line drums downstream, hundreds of them. He hadn't so much 

 as a gallon of the 87-octane we would need to begin our survey 

 flights over the delta. Inspector Kirk of the R.C.M.P., who was 

 a dead ringer for Leslie Howard, told us he was planning to take 

 the big police boat downriver to look for the "steels," as the 

 drums are called, and would let us know if he found any with 

 our number on them. Meanwhile, a barge was reportedly on its 

 way from Norman Wells with a new supply. But until gas arrived, 

 we were quite effectively grounded. 



We visited that afternoon with the R.C.M.P., and they invited 

 us to go upriver with two of their men on a round of trappers' 

 camps. We jumped at the chance, of course, and that evening 

 joined Phalen and McKinnon and went with them aboard the 

 police launch. 



The Mackenzie Delta is about 1 50 miles in straight-line length, 

 from Separation Point to the extreme northern projection of 

 Richard's Island near Hansen Harbor. It varies in width from 40 

 miles at Aklavik, to more than 50 at Reindeer Station and a 



