54 HUNTERS OF THE GREAT NORTH 



The last I heard of him he was in Coronation Gulf. 



But a story that interested me more was one that bore 

 every earmark of being true. The only suspicious thing 

 about it was that it seemed too romantic to be true. 



The Olga was said to have met in Victoria Island a 

 people who dressed and behaved like Eskimos but who 

 did not look like Eskimos. Some said they looked like 

 Europeans; others said they looked like Jews; some said 

 that the majority of them looked like any other Eskimos 

 but that there were among them a few persons with light 

 hair and blue eyes. 



When I discussed this story with the whaling captains, 

 I found they paid little attention to it. It was, however, 

 in the line of my profession as an anthropologist and so 

 I pressed the inquiry, whereupon the captains all told 

 me that I had better forget whatever I had heard from 

 the white sailors of the Olga and depend entirely on what 

 I could learn from those Mackenzie Eskimos who had 

 been on Klinkenberg's ship. I went to these and found 

 that they confirmed in substance the story which origi- 

 nally came from the white sailors. 



The Mackenzie Eskimos who had been with Klinken- 

 berg told me that the Victoria Island Eskimos had a 

 language differing from theirs only in accent and in a 

 few words. After a little intercourse, they could converse 

 together easily. These strange people had knives and 

 other implements of native copper, which of itself marked 

 them off from the western Eskimos. They were remark- 

 ably skilful at winter seal hunting and had for that reason 

 the great admiration of the westerners. The most strik- 

 ing thing was, however, that several of the Victoria Is- 

 landers looked to the Mackenzie Eskimos as if they were 

 white men in Eskimo clothing. 



