130 HUNTERS OF THE GREAT NORTH 



and leaving only one to two persons to tend the nets. 

 That way several hundred fish could be accumulated 

 against the return of the party from the coast. 



In the books I had read about the Eskimos I had al- 

 ways been impressed with how lonesome and depressing 

 it must be to spend the several weeks of midwinter with- 

 out one ray of sunlight. This had been worrying me a 

 great deal even before the sun disappeared, but Roxy 

 had told me that he had never heard of any Eskimos 

 who minded the absence of the sun, and had added that 

 all white men got used to it after a year or two. Sten 

 had confirmed this and, altogether, I had gathered from 

 him and the Eskimos that in the Arctic the period of the 

 sun's absence is looked forward to by everybody and is 

 the jolliest time of the year. 



It is not that the whites and Eskimos that live in the 

 Far North prefer darkness to daylight; neither do we in 

 the big cities prefer stifling August to the moderate days 

 of May or September. Still, there are many of us who 

 look forward to August because, although it is disagree- 

 able in weather, it is agreeable in being the vacation time. 

 That seems to be about the Eskimo point of view. In 

 midwinter it is almost impossible to hunt caribou or moun- 

 tain sheep and less pleasant than usual to fish or to trap. 

 Accordingly, they make it the vacation time and utilize 

 it for taking long journeys and for dancing, singing, and 

 general rejoicing. 



I understood already that this was the attitude of the 

 Eskimos and of such white men as Sten who had lived 

 there for many years. For myself I was so impressed 

 with thi' idea that I would find the winter depressing 

 that I really found it so — at least occasionally when I 

 had time to think about it. Harrison was a good mathe- 



