OS —— 
An Anthropogeographical Study of the Origin of the Eskimo Culture. 177 
River, and a smaller Alaskan part which comprises the considerably more 
restricted forest districts in the valley and side valleys of the Yukon River. 
The forest vegetation is the only hitherto mentioned geographically 
characteristic feature. Meanwhile there are others of great anthropo- 
geographical importance. Firstly the great abundance of fresh water. 
This especially applies to the Hudson part, the old granite and gneiss 
surface of which has been formed by glaciers and presents itself as “the 
land of a thousand lakes,” a character presented also by Finland. Lastly 
it must be remembered that the forest is of northern pine and birch, 
and that it does not everywhere occur in overpowering luxuriance. It 
has already been mentioned that there is one area which, with alter- 
nate stretches of forest and prairie, forms the transition from prairie 
to forest. In a corresponding manner the boundary of the tundra is 
naturally not sharp, as the outer belts of forest are already, from time 
to time, interrupted by tracts showing the tundra character. As regards 
climate these regions are characterized by their distinctively continental 
climate, with a long and severe winter and a short and comparatively 
warm summer. Almost the entire region lies north of the January iso- 
therm, — 20 C., which runs from Hamilton Inlet on the coast of Labrador 
in a curve almost mid-way between Hudson Bay and the Canadian 
Lakes, southwest round Lake Winnipeg, west of the Upper Mackenzie 
and south of the Yukon River. On comparing this with the fact that 
the same isotherm in Greenland reaches to about Disco Island, one 
understands that the here mentioned regions are during the winter just 
as cold as several Eskimo districts, and have almost as long a winter. 
A circumstance connected with this, which is of the greatest anthro- 
pogeographical importance to the inhabitants, is the protracted covering 
of lakes and rivers with ice. If regarded from the point of intercourse 
the use of the sledge (toboggan) is contingent upon this covering of ice 
together with the covering of snow. In the economic culture, the réle 
played by the covering of ice is that, through this, some fishing methods 
through holes in the ice occur. 
The stock of fish in rivers and lakes is very abundant. All judges 
of the land agree in emphasizing this. The most important fish is the 
“white-fish” (a species of salmon, Coregonus albus), which, on account 
of its abundance and importance to the Algonquin Indians south- 
west of Hudson Bay, has even got the surname “the reindeer of 
the waters.” In addition, sturgeon and pike are mentioned, as also 
Salmo Mackenzii', which is only found in the affluxes to the Arctic 
Sea from the Mackenzie River and eastwards; the Tinneh tribes call it 
Si, which is said to mean “the unknown,” which reappears in the French 
Canadian term for it, L’inconnu. 
Nowadays the most important hunting animals are the stags. The 
1 Cf. SABINE. 
Lil. 12 
