BY ESKIMO DOG-SLED 29 



s 



Eskimos are restless beings they like to 

 follow the call of their hunting, and to make 

 their temporary home where their work is. 

 Not many years ago the tents, all along the 

 coast, were of reindeer skins stitched together 

 with sinew and stretched on poles with the 

 hairy side outward ; and no doubt some of the 

 people will live in skin tents to the end, so 

 loth are they to give up the customs of their 

 lives. 



But calico tents are becoming very popular 

 and a good thing, too. They are lighter and 

 airier than skin tents, and afford just as good 

 a protection from the weather ; but the 

 Eskimos like them because they are so easily 

 mended. If an August storm tears a tent to 

 ribbons or hurls it bodily into the raging sea, 

 the owner and his family have no need to 

 spend the rest of the season packed like 

 sardines on the floor of some other man's tent, 

 waiting for the next year's reindeer hunt to 

 come round before making a bid for a new 

 one ; no, when the storm has passed, the 

 father takes his boat and hies him to the store, 

 and spends a few dollars of his fish-money on 

 a roll of calico which his wife will very speedily 

 turn into a tent. 



But even this is not the chief reason to 

 Eskimo minds. Portability is the thing ; and 



