A SUMMER ON THE YENESEI 53 



obliged to sell at the traders' price, for they have no 

 other market for their fish, and as there are no Trades 

 Unions on the Yenesei, they have not even the remedy 

 of a strike to help them to obtain better wages. The 

 methods of catching and preserving the fish are also 

 very primitive. With the introduction of modern 

 appliances and modern ways of curing, the Yenesei 

 might supply half Europe with fish. 



The principal fish caught are the sturgeon {Acipenser 

 hcei'i), the nyelxnei{Stenodus nelma), the omul {Coregonus 

 autumnalis), the muksun (C muksun), and the seld 

 (C. merki). These fish come up the river every year 

 from the Arctic Ocean. The sturgeon and nyelma 

 move as soon as the ice breaks up in May and June. 

 The muksun and seld follow three weeks later, and 

 the omul goes up stream about the middle of July. 

 But a good many sturgeon remain in the pools all the 

 year round, and at the settlements on the estuary, omul 

 and muksun are caught under the ice in the winter. 

 The Siberiaks say that these winter fish are fatter than 

 those taken in the summer.^ 



In the afternoon, we went ashore at Bieliy Pesok 

 (White Sand) for an hour. Two friendly Siberian 

 puppies, who were quite impervious to such snubs as a 

 pebble pelted at their heads, took it for granted that 

 I should take them for a walk. They quartered the 

 ground zealously for a hundred yards on either side of 

 me, and as the tundra was full of birds, our advance 

 made a deal of commotion. This was the last place 



^For tliese and other interesting notes on the fisheries of the Yenesei, 

 I am indebted to Dr. Nansen's account of his journey, Throuyh Siberia. 



