APPENDIX II 447 



I feel rather cooped up now, for winter is coming, but ice will not be ready 

 for travelling for a week or so yet. It was frozen over yesterday, but the 

 wind chased out the new ice. This keeps up for about two weeks in the 

 lagoon, and indefinitely outside. Last winter, in January, we had two miles 

 of water outside of the island. The natives hunt seal nearly all the time in 

 the cracks. Once in a while there is a quiet winter and no water, and then 

 they are hungry. They did not get many cariboo here this fall. They were 

 abundant in the early summer, but have migrated elsewhere. Several 

 hunters are farther east, where there seemed to be more game, but they have 

 not come in yet. My boy shot two for me, and I have the skins. My last 

 year's furs are in fine shape, and I doubt whether I will need new ones. 

 Two families failed to get any furs at all, and I may have to help them out 

 with woollen goods, of which we have abundance. I am going to send out 

 two good hunters for mountain sheep, as this variety is rare, and in demand 

 in museums. 



The phonograph has been the greatest pleasure to all of us, to natives 

 also. At first they didn't seem to care for my classical selections, but at the 

 end grew to like them. The prima donna records, Eames, Melba, etc., are 

 my chief delight. 



Sachawachick's boy was very ill, and I diagnosed typhoid, brought in by 

 natives from Point Barrow, where there is sickness, also at Herschel Island. 

 I put him on a Horlick's malted milk and whisky diet, and used a little 

 medicine, and he got well. You see what responsibilities come upon me. 



The other natives are grafters, very sharp on a bargain, but "Sacha" gives 

 us what we want, and lets us pay him as we wish. He took a skin off his 

 umiak (canoe) to make us boots for the ice trip, and had to patch the boat 

 up with odd pieces, and old bearskin. He is very different from the rest. 

 In the summer he lays up as many as forty or fifty seal in his ice-house, 

 while the rest hunt only when hungry. We used most of his seal for dog- 

 food, so that he had to hunt all winter to keep in meat. Last winter he 

 supported an old loafer from inland, because the latter fed him once in the 

 mountains when he had broken a leg, and could not hunt. 



I mentioned getting a tool chest for him, one with plain, strong tools, for 

 rough work. He is a fine carpenter. When the ship was to be abandoned 

 he came down and superintended, and assisted in the building of the house. 

 He is hereditary chief at Point Barrow, but moved away to keep his boys 

 from sickness, which is so prevalent there. 



I am off soon, up a river, with a native boy, for a month's trip. 1 get the 

 boy for one sack of flour for a month, and keep. He is very willing, and 

 knows the inland. 



The natives are great friends. In the past they were pretty sharp on the 

 trade, but now they always leave it to us, knowing that we are generous. 

 I am afraid we are spoiling them, but I can't see people going hungry and 

 selling $120 worth of furs for a sack of flour. Last year a trading ship came 

 to Point Barrow and paid double the usual price for skins, and they talk of 

 coming in here later. 



They made a fine kill of cariboo in August, the hunters of the east, when 



