92 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 



spring. It has always been my opinion that the arctic cold need 

 not entirely prevent work of this kind and that some sorts of geolog- 

 ical work can be even better done in winter than in summer, espe- 

 cially in places where the wind keeps the snow away and in river 

 canyons where the ice of winter gives more ready access to the foot 

 of a cliff than is possible when the stream bed is full of turbulent 

 water in summer. 



One point that naturally interested me was that Chipman told 

 me they had made a trial of my method of "living off the country" 

 and had found that it did not work. The account which he gave 

 me of their adventures in this connection sounded like the resume of 

 a comic opera. 



It seems that in the fall (as some said, to see if there were game 

 in the mountains, and as others had it, to demonstrate that there 

 was none), a party consisting of about half the expedition had made 

 a foray up the Ulahula River.* 



When a man hunts for a living seriously in the autumn months, 

 he gets up in the dark of the night. By dawn at the latest he leaves 

 camp and is eight or ten miles away, beyond the area from which 



* Probably because the Eskimos who now occupy this country are immi- 

 grants and because none of the real aborigines or their descendants are 

 living in the vicinity, the Eskimo names of two rivers in this locality seem 

 complete!}' lost and in their stead we have the "Ulahula River" and "Jags 

 River." 



Ulahula is a jargon word which may have its source in some South Pacific 

 language, perhaps that of the Hawaiian Islands, and which in the "Pidgin" 

 used by whalers in dealing with the Eskimos, signifies "to dance" or "to 

 celebrate." The natural inference, then, is that the name Ulahula was given 

 to the river by some whaler who knew that the Eskimos had either at a 

 particular time or else customarily held dances or celebrations near it. This 

 may connect the name of the river with the island at its mouth, Barter 

 Island, which is so called because the natives from the coast eastward and 

 westward as well as Indians from the Porcupine valley and other parts of 

 the interior used to meet here for purposes of barter every summer. We 

 have records of these meetings from many sources. I have talked with a 

 number of Eskimos and some Indians who themselves took part in these 

 meetings, and with Mr. Joseph Hodgson and Mr. John Firth, of the Hudson's 

 Bay Company, who were both stationed in the Porcupine valley as Hudson's 

 Bay factors while the Indians with whom they traded also made these jour- 

 neys regularly to Barter Island. 



A somewhat smaller river east of the Ulahula is called the Jags. The 

 origin of this name is definitely known. It is connected with a western 

 Eskimo who was a r^ighty hunter in the employ of the whaling ships and 

 who made the valle}' of this river his special hunting ground. At first he was 

 a sober, industrious and efficient man but later he became so addicted to 

 drink that his usefulness was jrreatly lessened. At the same time his real 

 name was forgotten, making way for the nickname of Jags. When he died 

 his name which had attached itself to the river was retained, both by the 

 Eskimos and the whites. 



.1 



