38 HUNTERS OF THE GREAT NORTH 



had told me in Winnipeg and what I had read in Sir 

 John Richardson's books about their formerly aggressive 

 attitude towards the Indians and their feeling of super- 

 iority over them. This was now confirmed by Firth, 

 who told me many stories of the early days when peace 

 had been but recently established by the Hudson's Bay 

 Company between the Eskimos and Indians. Both people 

 felt secure enough so that they met every summer both at 

 Fort Macpherson and Fort Red River, but neither trusted 

 the other completely and the two kept their separate 

 camps. At that time it had taken diplomacy to enable 

 Firth to prevent acts of violence. 



In one sense Firth was prejudiced in favor of the In- 

 dians. His own wife was half-Indian and he spoke the 

 Indian language fluently but could not speak the Eskimo 

 at all. The mode of thought of the Indians was, there- 

 fore, familiar to him. He knew enough about certain of 

 their characteristics to distrust them in one sense; but he 

 trusted them in another sense, for he knew just what 

 weaknesses to figure upon. The Eskimos were a much 

 more enterprising and reliable people but, in spite of that, 

 he had for them the distrust that comes from only partial 

 understanding. For certain individuals among the Es- 

 kimos he had unstinted praise. 



Firth told me especially about a "chief" by the name of 

 Ovayuak, who for enterprise, reliability and a generally 

 attractive character was unexcelled by any white man 

 or Indian he knew. There was another Eskimo of whom 

 he also spoke highly, although in a different sense. This 

 was a sophistica ted middle-aged man known as Roxy. 

 The whalers had given him this nickname when they first 

 came to Herschel Island in 1889, at which time Roxy, 

 then a youngster, had secured a job from one of them as 



