112 



CONQUERING THE ARCTIC ICE 



one hour after change. It was at times rather difficult to keep 

 the hole free of ice, but it never became so thick that it could 

 not be removed with a shovel. 



Every Sunday the Eskimos made free to come down to the 

 Duchess of Bedford, and the first Sunday after the ice had 

 frozen across I was visited by Sachawachick and Uxra, both of 



them with their families. 

 ifa. Sachawachick had a purpose 



in his visit, coming to offer 

 his service as a hunter. He 

 would work as hard as he 

 could and would give us all 

 the meat which his family 

 could not eat. In return he 

 was to get what groceries he 

 needed from the ship. As we 

 knew him by reputation to be 

 a very industrious and 

 straightforward native, his 

 proposal was accepted at 

 once, and we never had any 

 cause to regret it, as he 

 furnished seal meat for our 



twenty dogs throughout the winter, and cariboo, bear, or liver 

 for our table. 



Sachawachick is well known along the Arctic coast. There 

 is not a man in the country, white or native, who does not know 

 him, and none who knows him who does not like him. He is 

 about forty-five years of age, and was born at Point Barrow, where 

 his father, grandfather, and probably great-grandfather before 

 him were powerful chiefs. Sachawachick had grown up in 

 the years when unscrupulous whalers were the masters of the 

 natives, and our friend with the rest became a slave of the 

 whisky bottle. He worked for a white man, and once, while 

 he was out hunting for the station, one of his employers got 

 hold of his squaw and lived with her. Sachawachick heard of 

 it and hurried home, determined to kill them both. News 

 travels fast in the Arctic, and the rumour of Sachawachick's 

 intentions travelled ahead of him, so that when he came home 

 the bird had flown southward with its prey. 



SACHAWACHICK. 



