CHAPTER IX 



THE SUN GOES AWAY FOR THE WINTER 



A newcomer in the Arctic spends much time watching 

 the sun as it sinks lower and lower each day until at 

 last it ceases to appear above the horizon and the "Long 

 Night" begins. With us, the sun disappeared behind the 

 mountains to the south about the middle of November. 



Towards Christmas I became dissatisfied with my stay 

 at Shingle Point, but for no other reason than that the 

 Eskimos there were too sophisticated. Roxy, for instance, 

 had worked on whaling ships for more than twenty years 

 and spoke English fluently although it was, of course, the 

 kind of broken English which whalers and traders always 

 use in dealing with Indians or Eskimos. If the white 

 men who come in contact with the Eskimos would only 

 speak good English to them, the Eskimos would have 

 some chance of learning good English. This is never the 

 case, however, except in those parts of Alaska where 

 Government schools have been established or in some 

 part of ( where a missionary maintains a school. 



The captain who is talking to an Eskimo will never say, 

 "He traveled rapidly." Instead he says "Him go plenty 

 quick," or something of that sort. This, then, was the 

 kind of English that Roxy spoke and he used it in our 

 dealings continually. 



The rest of Roxy's family were his wife, his adopted 

 son about fourteen years old, and adopted daughter 

 (whom I have called his daughter) aged ten. By the 

 time winter actually set In, all our fellow villagers of the 



