HAULING THE NETS 



gloves. The cold did not seem to bite them: 

 " Unet " (what does it matter), they said, " it is our 

 life : we are made for it " ; and they pulled their 

 stiffening gloves on again to keep the rope from 

 chafing their hands. They got the heavy seals out 

 all stiff and dead, and piled them in a sort of stock- 

 ade to freeze, ready to be fetched home during the 

 winter. One was partly eaten by sharks. " Sharks 

 no good at all," they said ; " eat the seals and break 

 the nets. Sometimes we catch him, but he is no 

 good except for dogs' food, and his skin makes fine 

 sandpaper for smoothing the sledge runners." 



It was only the middle of November, but Okak 

 Bay was already beginning to freeze at the edges. 

 The boatmen had to smash the new ice with their 

 oars, and as we got nearer the jetty our boat stuck, 

 and one of the men climbed over the side and clung 

 there, stamping a passage with his heels. 



Jerry and his men only stayed long enough to 

 buy a few necessaries at the store ; and I watched 

 them shove their boat through the passage we had 

 just made, which was already half frozen, and hoist 

 their sail. With a wave of the hand and a shout of 

 "Aksunai," they set their course for the mouth of 

 the bay, and I walked up the jetty to the village. 



For a fortnight the hunters were busy with their 

 nets and their kajaks ; and then the sea was frozen, 

 and the seal hunt was over for the season. The seals 

 were away to their winter haunts at the edge of the 

 ocean ice ; winter had begun and the nets were 

 frozen in. It happens the same way every year : the 

 people want to make the most of their opportunity, 

 and they cannot tell exactly when the sea will freeze, 

 so they leave the nets in the water a day too long 



