56 HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC 



a wild goose at 160 yards, and once brained a deer with 

 a .22 bullet. He used only shot in the .55 and round 

 balls in the .38 barrels. 



Captain Larsson and Ed Born went ashore while 

 Lovering and I stayed aboard. During this time a 

 couple of skin boats floated out with a half score of 

 Chukchi visitors. They wore mukluks, red wadded 

 close-fitting breeches and loose parkas. The men had 

 the central portion of the top of the head trimmed very 

 short over a patch about four inches in diameter, and 

 the rest of the hair, left long, was combed down imiformly 

 on all sides, giving a rather attractive style to their head 

 dress. Word was passed around to lock doors and leave 

 nothing portable exposed, as the natives would steal 

 whatever they could. This lot, however, stood about 

 patiently, offering, when asked what they had to trade, 

 a few seal skins and coils of walrus-skin rope. 



We did not put temptations in their way, but perhaps 

 they were not so bad. When Nordenskjold wintered in 

 1878 at Koljoichin Bay, on his famous voyage through 

 the Arctic from Europe, he said this of the Chukchi: 

 "All who came on board were allowed to go about with- 

 out let or hindrance on our deck which was encumbered 

 with a great many things. We had not, however, to 

 lament the loss of the merest trifle." 



Their skin boats, or umiaks, were flat bottomed, some- 

 what like a dory, but sharp at both ends, with raking 

 stems and no rocker of the keel. A flat kelson ran the 

 length of the floor, the bilge stringer was sprung out by 

 floors at the bottom; the frames flared and were held by 

 thwarts midway to the gunwale, all being lashed in place 

 with sinew. Several light stringers at each side of 

 the kelson and others at the overhanging sides served to 



