CHAPTER VI 



LEARNING TO LIVE AS AN ESKIMO — ON A DIET OF FISH 



WITHOUT SALT 



Our village at Shingle Point that fall was never for long 

 of any one size. It was a tent village. Sometimes there 

 were only three or four tents and sometimes there were 

 thirteen or fourteen, for people kept going and coming. 

 Mostly the Eskimos were on their way from Herschel 

 Island to some point east of us on the coast or on some 

 branch of the Mackenzie delta where they intended to 

 spend the winter. Those who chose the coast would be 

 for that winter fishermen exclusively, for seals are not 

 found in any number so near the Mackenzie on account 

 of the fresh water. 



The Mackenzie is almost as large a river as the Missis- 

 sippi and brings down so much fresh water that ships at 

 sea, even out of sight of land, can drop their buckets 

 overboard and dip up good drinking water. Wc estimate 

 that Shingle Point is about twenty miles west of the 

 Mackenzie (there is no certain line where a river delta 

 ends and the ocean proper begins) and still the water in 

 the ocean outside our camp was commonly as fresh as 

 in a mountain brook. At King Point, fifteen miles west 

 of us, it was fresh about half the time, and even at 

 Herschel Island, more than sixty miles west of the Mac- 

 kenzie, it was likely to be fresh rly so whenever 

 there was a protracted calm or when the wind blew from 



the east. 



64 



