390 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 



ward.* The man to whom had been entrusted the management of 

 the new district was Mr. Christy Harding, an Englishman born in 

 India but long identified with trading in the far north. When I 

 first went down the Mackenzie River on my way to the Arctic in 

 1906 he was in charge of Fort Resolution on the south shore of 

 Great Slave Lake, and I saw him there again on my second journey 

 in 1908. His wife, who was with him now, was born at Fort Simp- 

 son, only about two hundred and fifty miles south of the arctic circle, 

 the daughter of Julian S. Camsell, who for a long time was in charge 

 of all the Company's posts in the arctic and sub-arctic section of 

 the Mackenzie valley. 



Our compulsory wait while the bottom of the Ruhy was being un- 

 covered I employed in engaging several Eskimo families. The men 

 we needed, though experienced white men would have been as good if 

 available ; the women as seamstresses are priceless. Our field cloth- 

 ing is almost entirely made of the skins of seals and caribou and in 

 securing these the best white hunters are usually better than the best 

 Eskimos. But the preparation of the skins is tedious to any one 

 but Eskimo women brought up to the idea that it is their proper 

 work, while such skill as theirs with the needle is acquired only 

 by years and generations of practice. All their needlework is ex- 

 cellent and their waterproof seams are probably the only really 

 waterproof sewing in the world. Our bootmakers do not conceive 

 that a seam may be in itself waterproof, and attain their ends by 

 rubbing or soaking some sort of greese into the needleholes. Among 

 the Eskimos no seam is considered passable unless it is waterproof 

 vv'ithout greasing. If a good seamstress sees you rubbing oil on 

 boots she has made she is likely to become angry, considering it an 

 insult to be suspected of a seam that needs grease to cover up de- 

 ficiencies of workmanship. When a woman finishes the last seam of 

 a waterboot she inflates it like a balloon, twists the mouth as the 

 small boy does with a paper bag he is going to "bust," and waits 

 for a few minutes to see if any air is escaping. She gives it a more 

 severe test by applying steady pressure which multiplies the strain 

 several times. Then she holds the seam to her cheek to detect the 

 escape of air, or near a steady lamp or candle-flame to note the 

 slightest flicker. 



Seamstresses such as these we need so badly that we are willing 



* Two more posts have since been started. Fort Bacon on the south 

 shore of Dolphin and Union Straits, and a temporary station, which will 

 soon be permanently located, on the south shore of Coronation Gulf about 

 a hundred miles east of the Coppermine. 



