CHAPTER XI 



The edge of the ice Gustafs breakfast Rafting on ice Jakko 

 and Rena Catching a walrus An old custom Martin's seal. 



DURING the long winter that followed 

 the homecoming of the families to 

 their wooden homes in the village 

 the men were seldom idle. In my visits to 

 the houses I always found the women in 

 charge, and my question " Aipait nanneka ? ' 

 (where is your husband ?) nearly always 

 brought the answer " Sinamut aigivok " (he 

 is off to the edge of the ice again). That is 

 the hunting-place that the Eskimos love, the 

 edge of the ocean ice, where the seals sport 

 in the chilly water or clamber on the ice to 

 rest. Sometimes, when sudden sickness has 

 called me into the village in the small hours 

 of the morning, I have heard the scufflings 

 and yelpings of dogs, and have seen dim and 

 shadowy men, dressed in sealskin clothes, 

 trotting down the track among the hummocks 

 towards the sea ice, off to the " sina." 



When I talked about the sina to big Gustaf 

 he simply said, " We go, eh ? Start at four : 



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