54 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 128 



Two lengths of coir rope (selected because of its resistance to a long 

 stay in the water) were attached to the dredge and extended loosely 

 along the bottom in opposite directions, with the dredge at an angle 

 of 1 80° to the ocean bottom. A small anchor was attached to keep 

 the rope taut from the bottom to the surface. Buoys were placed at 

 the surface and each buoy was connected to the vertical portion of 

 the rope by means of a solid wire about 15 feet in length. When the 

 sea froze over, a hole was made around each buoy and a dredge haul 

 could be made by drawing the dredge back and forth between the 

 holes. A locality had to be selected where the ice would not break. 



This last requisite precludes the use of the above method of winter 

 dredging at Point Barrow. There is no location where the ice does not 

 break. It may break up several times before the final freeze-up, and 

 sometimes great ridges are piled up and carried ashore (pi. 8, fig. i). 

 It was therefore necessary to originate a method that could be carried 

 out after freeze-over occurred. 



At first a few dredge hauls were tried between holes in the ice 

 about 30 feet apart. Then holes were made at greater intervals with 

 the ice-cutting device (pi. 2, fig. 2) so that a line could be threaded 

 between them. But a distance of even 100 feet between the two most 

 distant holes was insufficient to allow enough horizontal drag on the 

 dredge, with the result that very little animal life was obtained. It 

 was also necessary to select a location that could be reached by a 

 weasel in order to haul the ice-cutting machinery to the site. This 

 precluded dredging more than 2 miles from shore by this method. 



Unsuccessful attempts were made to use a prairie ice jigger or 

 creeper such as is used by Canadian fishermen to carry a line under 

 the ice of lakes. Also valuable time was lost trying to perfect a 

 creeper that would work under ocean ice, the underside of which is 

 covered with a slush 3 or 4 inches thick that piles up ahead of the 

 creeper and makes the ice uneven. 



The only recourse was to select a location in a lead that had re- 

 cently frozen over so that the ice was thick enough to support workers 

 and equipment but thin enough to make the digging of holes by hand 

 not too laborious or time-consuming. Two large holes were made 

 300 feet or more apart. (See fig. 3, a and b.) A crew of three Eski- 

 mos was employed to thread a line between these holes. One (fig. 3, 

 5) held the line, another (7) dug holes on a slant at 15 feet apart, 

 and the third (d) grappled the line by means of a pole with a hook 

 on the end. The end of the line extending under the ice from a to b 

 was attached to the dredge line (p) at a and drawn through to b. 

 The dredge was then lowered straight down to the bottom through 



