200 HUNTERS OF THE GREAT NORTH 



ing insects — bumblebees, butterflies, dragonflies, horse- 

 flies, blue-bottles, and the like. There are also many 

 kinds of beetles, worms and other crawling things. This 

 rich insect life corresponds to the rich vegetation of the 

 prairie. It seems to me that in most places, prairie is 

 the best general name for the arctic grasslands, but in 

 many places you would speak of them rather as meadow. 

 There are also patches here and there where mosses and 

 lichens prevail, so that the name of neither prairie nor 

 meadow fits exactly. I never speak of "tundra," for that 

 word is misleading because it conveys a sense of barren- 

 ness to the average reader. In many places there are 

 acres and acres where flowers of one kind or another form 

 a veritable carpet. There are not likely to be in any 

 given locality more than a hundred or so different kinds 

 of flowering plants, but the individual flowering plants 

 are numerous and the flowers are brilliant in color. 



It was not till June that it began to rain to any con- 

 siderable extent. That summer we had only one heavy 

 thunder shower. 



Our plans had been made to leave the country this year 

 and Captain Mikkelsen decided we would go out by way 

 of Point Barrow. On the 14th of July we started west 

 along the coast in two boats, a wooden sailing boat be- 

 longing to the Duchess and an umiak belonging to a local 

 Eskimo. 



I 1 it a delightful adventure sailing along an un- 



known coast with a fair wind, by the li r ',ht of the mid- 

 night sun. Occasionally we came to Eskimo encamp- 

 ments and frequently we went ashore to hunt geese, eider 

 ducks or other birds. We saw no caribou and the Eski- 

 mos told us they were not likely to be found near the 

 coast at this time of year. It is a belief common among 



