272 HUNTERS OF THE GREAT NORTH 



described the Alaskan Eskimos call the auktok or crawl- 

 ing method. We occasionally kill seals by the more 

 ingenious mauttok or waiting method. 



In most of Alaska the mauttok method is now only a 

 tradition. The older men in the Mackenzie district know 

 the theory but I have never seen them use it. My first 

 experience with mauttok hunting came in 1910 when I 

 was with the Copper Eskimos in Coronation Gulf. 



Through the eyes of a southerner nothing can be a 

 more desolate or more hopeless desert so far as food is 

 concerned than the level expanse of winter ice along the 

 polar coast. If the coast is open as in northern Alaska, 

 you can go five or ten miles to seaward and find a place 

 where the wind has broken the ice and where the cakes 

 are in motion. Here you will find seals swimming about 

 in the water like bathers in a pond, and the tracks of 

 polar bears that live on the seals may meet you anywhere. 

 But in places like Coronation Gulf there is land on every 

 side and the ice does not move from November, when 

 it forms, until the following June or July, when it 

 eventually breaks up some two months after summer and 

 green grass have come upon all the surrounding lands. 

 There are no polar bear tracks on this ice except in rare 

 years, and no obvious sign indicates the presence of game. 



We were in a village on the level ice some ten miles 

 from shore. There were twelve or fifteen snowhouses 

 with two families in some and one in others. The 

 population of the village was around fifty, among whom 

 there were about fifteen able-bodied hunters. A few men 

 were too old and stayed at home for that reason; and 

 boys do not hunt seals until thoy are nearly grown. 



Around mid-winter we have on a clear day in Coron- 

 ation Gulf about six hours of hunting light. At that 



