go HUNTERS OF THE GREAT NORTH 



of caribou hunting inland, and I think that I was more 

 interested than either of them. Roxy was used to living 

 on fish alone and did not mind it. And Sten had in his 

 house a little flour and other provisions. When I pur- 

 chased the groceries from Captain Leavitt in the fall, I 

 had thought I was getting about half enough to live on 

 all winter. This could easily have been eked out with 

 fish to last the whole winter. To do that seemed rea- 

 sonable at first, but when we actually got the goods 

 ashore at Shingle Point both Roxy and Sten explained 

 to me that nothing could be saved or rationed which was 

 kept in the house of an Eskimo. They were communists 

 and, furthermore, great believers in the doctrine that 

 sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof and that the 

 morrow is well able to take care of itself. The only way 

 I could save the groceries would be to keep them in Sten's 

 house. The Eskimos understood the peculiar prejudice 

 the white men have for private property and would not 

 mind it at all if white men had in their own homes any 

 delectable things unobtainable by Eskimos. But any- 

 thing left in the home of an Eskimo would be eaten up 

 just as quickly as suited all the Eskimos. Roxy ex- 

 plained that I would never be able to make friends with 

 the people if I lived among them and still tried to have 

 my own food in private. I would either have to go and 

 live with Sten on groceries or else live with them on fish. 

 I had, accordingly, given Sten all my groceries. Oc- 

 casionally, however, I got back from him five or ten 

 pounds of flour and wc had in Roxy's house a little feast 

 of doughnuts shared by all. These doughnut banquets 

 had been less than a tenth of my diet and I was hungry 

 for a change from the fish that had been nine-tenths of 

 the diet. I was no less eager to see the country inland 



