SLEDGE DOGS 



There seems to be no limit to a dog's appetite, 

 especially if it be a hungry travelling dog. During 

 one stay at Nain a man came to me with a very 

 rueful countenance to ask whether I had any spare 

 harness with me. He had followed my sledge from 

 Okak, and wanted to get back again if only he could 

 be assisted out of the plight in which his dogs had 

 landed him. It appeared that the harness was all 

 wet when he reached Nain, so he hung it over the 

 roof of the hut in which he was lodging, expecting 

 it to dry in the wind. In the morning it was all 

 gone in more senses than one, not a trace remained 

 and his dogs were slinking about the village with 

 a furtive air and a very well-fed appearance. He 

 seemed hurt by this ungrateful behaviour. " And I 

 fed them, too," he said ; " I gave them half a seal for 

 their supper." It was only the wolfish nature of 

 the dogs that made them devour the harness, and 

 not hunger merely, for I am sure that the man did 

 feed them as he said. In fact, I have never known 

 an Eskimo go in to his own food and rest after a 

 day's travelling, without first unharnessing and feed- 

 ing his dogs. It is a custom of the people. 



Sometimes the dogs have to work on very poor 

 food, especially in the springtime, when the reindeer 

 hunt is over and the seals have not yet come. Then 

 the dogs have to help in the spring cleaning, if I 

 may use such an expression ; at any rate, when all 

 the people have got new reindeer skins for beds it 

 seems quite the thing to chop the old bed-skins up 

 for dog-food, and the dogs gulp this queer fodder 

 down merrily enough if it is moistened with a little 

 rank oil. Two or three meal-times a week is 

 enough for the sledge dogs ; the Eskimos say that 



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