78 HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC 



On nearing the broad, steep shingle, which was com- 

 posed wholly of well-worn rounded pebbles, the boat was 

 backed end-on and we jumped ashore, the sailor pulling 

 out again to save the boat from being rubbed by the 

 little breakers. Boys were hurling pebbles here with the 

 same kind of slings as those used by natives in distant 

 lands: a sinew cord fastened to each end of a bit of 

 leather, in which a small hole seated the missile. 



A row of about forty igloos, not counting four or five 

 box-like yellow, blue or pink frame cabins, was strung 

 along the turf above the beach and when the fog thinned 

 a bit we could see that a large lagoon lay just over the 

 rise a few hundred yards beyond the ocean shore. At 

 the east end of the settlement the west butt of the high 

 bluff, which makes East Cape a conspicuous landmark 

 twenty-nine hundred feet in altitude, abruptly fixed the 

 limit of the sandspit. 



Aside from the round-topped, skin-covered igloos the 

 most striking feature of the to-^m was the great number 

 of whale skulls, vertebrae, ribs and jaw bones strewn 

 about the place. Indeed, the skulls and vertebrae seemed 

 to underhe much of the top-soil. They were laid in rows 

 to form terraces for the huts, built into the walls of 

 caches, and used as weights to hold down the skin cover- 

 ing of the houses. Whale jaws and ribs were set upright 

 in the ground in fours and the boats laid high and dry 

 on cross pieces lashed to them; incidentally also above 

 the fangs of the numerous dogs which would eat the 

 wabus skin covers. Whales' bones and rocks were far 

 more plentiful than wood. Driftwood was the main 

 source of supply of this latter material, for no trees were 

 growing within range of vision. 



Naturally we entered many igloos, practically all in 



