CONQUERING THE ARCTIC ICE 



the natives, and the Canadian Government sent in a detach- 

 ment of Mounted Police to keep order among the many men 

 who wintered there. 



The Eskimos soon learned that there was something to be 

 got from the whalers, that they could lead a pleasant and easy 

 life if they took employment on their ships, and they flocked 



in from near and far to hunt 

 and to work for the white 

 men. But the Eskimo is not 

 fond of working, and when 

 he saw that women from the 

 west were on board the ships, 

 leading a life of luxury and 

 drinking with the officers and 

 the crew, he soon brought 

 his own women to the market. 

 The Eskimos, as a race, do 

 not look upon it as immoral 

 for a woman to belong first 

 to one man, then to another, 

 and it is easy to understand, 

 and easy to forgive, that a 

 woman who saw other women living a life of ease, instead of 

 hunting and fighting against the cold and storms for a living, 

 could be induced to go on board as the captains' or officers' 

 woman during their stay in the winter quarters. So the 

 women went, young and old the demand was large enough 

 and there came a time of backsliding for the native women, 

 a time of drinking and feasting, when they lived with the 

 whalers and got all their hearts desired. They had food 

 and fine clothes, sweets and rings, and it was not long before 

 they, as well as all other savage tribes, became fond of 

 intoxicating drinks. Orgies were common on Herschel Island 

 in those days ; drunken men and women, white men as well 

 as natives, were carousing along the beach or in the cabins, 

 and the local missionaries could do nothing. But when the 

 Mounted Police came and locked up and punished the drunk 

 and disorderly, this people for the first time became acquainted 

 with the white man's laws, laws which the Mounted Police 

 were always there to enforce. They made the Eskimos afraid 



ESKIMO WOMAN WITH CHILD ON 

 HER BACK. 



