144 ACROSS THE SUB-ARCTICS OF CANADA. 



the square flipper seal, is nearly thirty feet in length. 

 An Eskimo can handle his whip with great dexterity, 

 being able not only to reach any particular dog in the 

 pack, but to strike any part of its body, and with as 

 much force as the occasion may require. 



Another curious Eskimo practice, observed by the 

 women, is that of daily chewing the boots of the house- 

 hold. As already intimated, these boots or moccasins 

 are made of oil-tanned seal or deer-skins. The hair is 

 always removed from the skin of which the foot of the 

 moccasin is made, but not always from that part forming 

 the leg. However, the point is this, that these moccasins, 

 after having been wet and dried again, become very 

 hard, and the most convenient or effective or possibly 

 the most agreeable way of softening them seems to 

 be by mastication. Whatever may be the reason for 

 adopting this method, the fact is that nearly every 

 morning the native women soften the shoes of the 

 family most beautifully by chewing them. What to us 

 would seem the disagreeable part of this operation 

 cannot be thoroughly understood by one who has not 

 some idea of the flavor of a genuine old Eskimo shoe. 



In one of my trips in the land of the Eskimo I had an 

 escort composed not only of men and women, old and 

 young, but also of little children, several of whom could 

 not have been more than five or six years old, and it was 

 marvellous to see the powers of endurance of these little 

 creatures, for they travelled along with the rest of the 

 party, a distance of twenty-five miles, having no other 

 object in view than that of seeing the white stranger. 



The " shin-ig-bee," or Eskimo sleeping bag, is an 

 article essential to the comfort of the traveller when 



