THIRTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING. Lis 
season of the year immediately frozen solid. When they are 
ready to leave camp they break up this mass of frozen fish into 
lumps of a size convenient to load on their dog sleds, and bring 
them back to the village in this condition. 
The season of no sun and short daylight is passed at the vil- 
lage. This lasts till about the end of January, and then many 
families again resort to the rivers, and stay, living in snow huts 
always at this season of the year, till the first or middle of April. 
Fish do not appear to be quite so plenty at this season as in the 
autumn, but they still catch a good many. In the meantime: 
those who have remained at home have not been without a sup- 
ply of fish food. There is a small species of codfish, the Polar 
cod (Boreogadus saida), which appears along the coast in large 
schools about the end of January, or when the sun again begins to 
rise. We were unable to find out whether the fish really leaves 
the coast to return in January, but at all events the Esquimaux 
do not fish for them until then, and say there are none to be 
found. They would be likely to fish for them were any to be 
caught, because just at this season of the year they are apt to be 
pinched for food, as no deer are to be had, and if the ice happens 
to be unfavorable seals are very scarce. 
Wherever there is a level field of this season’s ice inclosed by 
lines of hummocks, the fish are sure to be plenty. Such a field 
as this, about half a mile long, practically afforded a living to 
most of the people in the village during the season of 1883, be- 
cause that year the ice was very unfavorable for sealing, and 
food was pretty scarce in the village. 
The fishing is carried on mostly by the women and children, 
though one or two old men generally go out, and one or two of 
the younger men, when they cannot go sealing and food is want- 
ed at the house, will join the fishing party. Each fisherman is 
provided with a long-handled icepick, which he frequently 
leaves sticking in the snow near the fishing ground, a long line 
made of strips of whalebone, reeled lengthwise on a slender 
wooden shuttle about eighteen inches long and provided with a 
copper sinker and two pear-shaped “jigs” of walrus ivory armed 
with four barbless hooks of copper, and a scoop or dipper made 
of reindeer antler, with a wooden handle about two feet long. 
