115 Arctic adventures the search continued 



barren and extremely rugged. In some of this area small herds of 

 musk ox survive, but we saw none of them. Waterfowl were al- 

 most nonexistent. At Coppermine, Dick Connick had an Eskimo 

 hunter show us his hunting arrows, similar to those used to kill 

 musk ox, although it is forbidden by law to kill them in any 

 manner. Originally the points were carved from bone or walrus 

 ivory, but all of these had been ground from old files or knives. 

 One was double-headed for impaling birds like ptarmigan. As for 

 protection of the musk ox, Dick told us that he had come across 

 a party of natives who had just killed two of the rare Bovidae. 

 They had used spears and clubs and, although they knew it was 

 frowned upon in fact contrary to the white man's law never- 

 theless they were dancing around in great glee, grinning like 

 schoolboys and quite proud of themselves. "What could I do?" 

 Dick said. "They pay no attention to words, and I can't fine them 

 because they have no money or throw them in jail because we 

 have no jail. The thing's impossible!" So they go on killing a 

 musk ox or two now and then. However, if there are any number 

 of the animals in that terrible country we saw to the east of 

 Coppermine they should survive indefinitely. It would be a wonder 

 if even a Barren Ground Eskimo could find his way very far 

 through that rocky purgatory and survive. 



These Copper Eskimos are quite different from those we had 

 come to know at Aklavik. They are caribou and seal hunters, and 

 more primitive than any natives we observed anywhere in the 

 North. Few of them knew any English, or at least they were 

 unwilling to try it on us. Many were living in caribou-skin tents, 

 including one stout old woman who sat on some hides thrown 

 on the ground in her open doorway, bare to the waist and un- 

 abashedly boiling tea water. There was also at least one old-type 

 sod house, like a winter igloo in shape and made of squares of 

 sod cut from the grassy slopes. It was abandoned, and a bleached 

 set of moose antlers lay on the roof. Sled dogs were tethered in 

 long rows near the beach or back toward the hills, big, vicious 

 brutes much like those we had seen at Aklavik. The natives were 

 friendly and whenever we walked near one of their tents they 

 asked us to have tea with them. At first we thought they were 



