AND KAYAK 161 



desolate neck of land between the fiords, and 

 have watched them peering at the spoor of 

 a bear in the snow. " Tumingit " (his foot- 

 prints), they say. " Old, no good." 



It is remarkable how long one may live in 

 Labrador without seeing any of these fur 

 animals in the wild state ; as for myself, the 

 nearest I ever got to a bear was when Paulus 

 came to me and said, " Me kill a bear you 

 want some, eh ? " and so for next day's 

 dinner we had a roast haunch of black bear 

 on the table, and found it excellent. 



It is wonderful to see how keen the Eskimos 

 are to notice footprints. Hares and weasels 

 and lemmings and martens, and all the other 

 animals that may have crossed your path as 

 you travel on your dog sled, all leave tracks 

 that the Eskimos can tell. Your driver will 

 tell you how long it is since the animal passed ; 

 whether it was running or walking ; how big 

 it was ; and you soon learn to know some- 

 thing of these tracks for yourself, and stop 

 to peer and study whenever you come upon 

 some footprints that seem strange. 



I stopped my sled one day by the side of a 

 great bank of snow. A queer little track ran 

 down the bank and across our path, as though 

 some tiny animal had hopped that way. It 

 was not a bird, for there were no marks of 



