THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 25 



kimo is happy is that in the uncivilized state he usually has enough 

 wholesome food to keep him in perfect health. And if there is a 

 royal road to happiness it is through health. From the missionary 

 we must, if we are logical, expect a rather more pessimistic picture. 

 He is by profession a reformer and goes North to improve conditions ; 

 if he found them excellent his work would, by his own confession, 

 be useless. Some missionaries too, are so deeply religious (in the 

 orthodox sense) that they are constitutionally incapable of con- 

 ceiving that any one can really be happy unless he has been "saved." 



When we realize that the Eskimos secure their living with little 

 labor as compared with the rest of us, and that they are healthy 

 and happy, it dawns on us that they are really inhabiting a desir- 

 able country. Nearly every close observer from Sir John Richard- 

 son down has pointed out that on the continent of North America 

 the relation of the Eskimos to the Indians south of them has always 

 been aggressive, and though there is fear on both sides, still the 

 Indians are far more frightened of the Eskimos than the Eskimos 

 are of the Indians. It follows, then, that the Eskimos have not 

 been crowded by a more powerful people into an undesirable place 

 which they now inhabit. There is no more evidence that the 

 Eskimos have been crowded north by the Indians than there is 

 evidence that the present population of England are living there 

 because crowded north by the French. 



But now comes the paradox of human conservatism everywhere. 

 The Eskimos who inhabit these desirable coast lands and who are 

 firmly of the opinion that they are desirable, were as grounded in 

 the belief of the desolation and lifelessness of the ocean to the north 

 of them as were the scientists or the explorers. The pioneer side of 

 our work consisted in testing, in the way which we shall tell, the 

 theory that the ice floes of the northern ocean, no less than the is- 

 lands which sprinkle it, were capable of supporting life and that 

 white men were competent to demonstrate it. The Eskimos con- 

 sidered theory and test absurd, and would take no part in it. 



One attribute of a high civilization is a development of the 

 spirit of adventure, of the will to experiment. It is possible to get 

 some white men to try anything, no matter what the risk; but to 

 get an Eskimo to try anything is not possible if the venture seems 

 futile or dangerous. We do many things for honor and glory, for 

 science and humanity, and some things for dare-deviltry; but to 

 an Eskimo dare-deviltry is inconceivable and he could get neither 

 honor nor glory from his own people by risking his life to establish 

 a theory. They would consider his action merely silly and he would 



