7 6 



CONQUERING THE ARCTIC ICE 



food and clothing is needed. They are there for " what's in 

 it," and not for any philanthropic purpose, but for all that they 

 have done much to redeem the Eskimo tribe by teaching and 

 enforcing the rule, no work, no pay. 



About the same time the whisky trade was stopped by the 



Government, which sent up 

 a Revenue Cutter to search 

 the ships for liquor, to 

 stay among the whaling 

 fleet, and by its moral sup- 

 port to prevent the further 

 demoralization of the Es- 

 kimo tribe. The officers 

 acted as police and judges, 

 and the Eskimos obtained 

 their first knowledge of 

 white men's laws through 

 the Revenue officers. Mur- 

 derers and thieves were 

 punished, and before long 

 the Eskimos came to the 

 Revenue Cutter with their 

 smaller or greater troubles, 



to let the captain decide between them and abide by his decision. 

 The Eskimos are adaptable people. In a very few years 

 they learned to work and to value their work, they learned 

 to read and to write, and even grown-up people went to 

 the school. They learned that neither they nor any white man 

 in the country could do exactly as he liked, and that certain 

 laws existed and would be enforced, whoever the offender 

 might be. They are ambitious people, and from their ranks 

 young men grew up, who themselves now have whaling stations 

 and other Eskimos working under them. They have learned 

 the value of their whalebone and the value of the different white 

 man's articles, and if they cannot get the price they want 

 through the whaling stations or vessels, they send their bone 

 out and receive goods in the following year. And when the 

 Government sent in domesticated reindeer and wanted young 

 men as apprentices, offering them as payment a promise that 

 in five years they would be their own masters and possess a 



IGLOOKOOK. 



