CHAPTER XLII 



A VISIT TO THE COPPER ESKIMOS 



OCTOBER 19th we left the others behind at the temporary- 

 hunting camp just north of Deans Dundas Bay while Emiu, 

 Palaiyak and I went farther south in search of Eskimos. 

 On our way along the coast we saw frequent traces of Eskimos who 

 had been there in summer, either inuksuit or wood shavings where 

 they had been fashioning their implements from driftv/ood. There 

 were no recent signs of caribou but a few bear tracks, and accord- 

 ing to expectations the sealing conditions improved. The map in 

 this vicinity needs correcting but on this journey we had not the 

 facilities for doing it and we never thereafter had the time. It is 

 possible, however, to identify from the map the conspicuous points. 



As we advanced I commonly walked along the beach sticking 

 up on end any little piece of driftwood for use as fuel on later 

 journeys during the winter. Some of the wood was doubtless hid- 

 den by snow. What I saw amounted to less than a c^uarter of a 

 cord per mile of beach. We found bones of whales here and there, 

 in some cases bowhead bones but more often those of the ingiitok. 

 One of the unsettled points about whales is whether the animal 

 known to the Eskimos as ingutok is a distinct animal or a young 

 bowhead. The Eskimos say that the meat is different in texture 

 and flavor. This I can verify though I cannot say that this dif- 

 ference may not be due to age. The amount of whalebone is very 

 small with the ingutok but this again might result from youthful- 

 ness. Of the whaling captains I have talked with, most are of the 

 opinion that it is another species of whale. They say the/ have 

 killed bowheads of size corresponding to the ingutok and, beyond 

 the proportions of the body, quite different. 



At Phayre Point we stopped October 24th for seals, but the cur- 

 rent proved so strong that they would have drifted beyond our 

 reach before we could secure them with the manak. Had we had 

 with us a tarpaulin to convert our sledge into a boat we could 

 have killed almost any number. The ice in this vicinity was still 

 so thin that bays could not be crossed and we had to follow around 



416 



