SPRING JOURNEY IN A SKIN BOAT 201 



those who write about caribou that in the spring and 

 early summer they come down to the sea to avoid the mos- 

 quitoes. This is a complete misunderstanding, so far as 

 my observation goes. If they do come down to the coast, 

 it is usually in the early spring, a month or two before 

 the mosquitoes arrive. During the height of the mosquito 

 season, as the Eskimos told us, it is only rarely that bands 

 come to the coast and you usually have to go thirty or 

 forty miles inland before you find caribou in any numbers. 

 In September after the mosquitoes are gone you are far 

 more likely to find them near the sea. It appears, then, 

 that the caribou do not come to the ocean because of the 

 mosquitoes and that their movements are determined by 

 entirely other causes — probably the lack of preferred 

 foods, the change in the palatability of certain grasses as 

 they become ripe in autumn, or by the direction of the 

 wind. Caribou usually travel against the wind. 



We had proceeded without incident as far west as the 

 eastern edge of the Colville delta when an accident hap- 

 pened that changed all our plans. Storkerson was playing 

 with a rifle and shot himself through the foot. After 

 preliminary attention to the wound, Dr. Howe gave it as 

 his opinion that Storkerson should be taken back to Flax- 

 man Island immediately, for he thought that trouble with 

 the wound might develop and that an operation might 

 be necessary. He had taken with him an emergency kit 

 but had left behind at Flaxman Island his anesthetics and 

 many of his instruments, and did not feel that he could 

 attend to Storkerson properly elsewhere. To make this 

 decision was no great hardship for most of us, for it meant 

 only that we would go by whaler from Flaxman Island to 

 Point Barrow to reach the revenue cutter instead of get- 

 ting there a few weeks earlier by means of small boats. 



