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III. 



THE WESTERN ESKIMO. 



Observations on the Western Eskimo, and the Country they inhabit ; 

 from Notes taken during two years at Point Barrow. By Mr. JoHH 

 SiMi'SON, Surgeon, r.n., Her Majesty's Discovery Ship, Plover. 1 



The term Western Eskimo is usually understood to apply to 

 all the people of that race who are found to the west of the 

 Mackenzie Kiver, hut as they form two distinct communities, whose 

 nearest respective settlements are separated by an interval of three 

 hundred miles of coast, it is proper to state that the term is at 

 present restricted to the more western branch. The tract of 

 country exclusively inhabited by them is tbat small portion of the 

 north-western extreme of the American continent included by a 

 line extended between the mouth of the Colville Kiver and the 

 deepest angle of Norton Sound, and the coast-line from the latter 

 through Behring Straits and the Arctic - Sea back to the Colville. 

 The seaboard for a little way to the south of Norton Sound is also 

 occupied by a few scattered families of the same race. As these 

 people divide themselves into numerous sections, named after the 

 portions of land they inhabit or the rivers flowing through them, it 

 will be convenient, before speaking more particularly of themselves, 

 to give some account of the country as described by them. The 

 information is principally derived from the people of Point Barrow, 

 some of whom have travelled and lived for a time in different 

 localities, and from strangers who came to visit them during the 

 time of the Plover's stay at that place. 



By Captain Beechey's survey, the south and western part of this 

 district will be seen to be mountainous and deeply indented by 

 arms of the sea, but the northern and more inland portions have 

 been examined to only a short distance from the coast. The nit [ves 

 of Point Harrow describe the latter as uniformly low, and full of 

 small lakes or pools of fresh water to a distance of about fifty miles 



1 Prom ' Farther Papers relative to the Recent A.rotio Expeditions La Bearoh of 

 Sir John Franklin.' Parliamentary Reports, 1855. 



