114 FISH-CULTURAL ASSOCIATION. 
Hardly an Esquimaux, and especially no Esquimaux boy, stirs 
out of the house in the winter without one of these scoops in his 
hand. To every party of two or three there will also bea good- 
sized bag of seal-skin, generally made of a piece of an old kayak 
cover, for bringing home the fish. Arriving at the fishing 
grounds, each proceeds to pick a hole through the ice, which is 
about four feet thick, clearing out the chips with the scoop. The 
“jigs” are then let down through the hole and enough line un- 
reeled to keep them just clear of the bottom where the fish are 
playing about. The reel is held in the right hand and serves as 
a short rod, while the scoop is held in the left hand and used to 
keep the hole clear of the scum new of ice which, of course, is 
constantly forming. The line is kept in constant motion, jerked 
up quickly a short distance and then allowed to drop back, so 
that the little fish that are nosing about the white “jigs” after 
the manner of codfish, are hooked about the jaw or in the 
belly. 
As soon as a fisherman feels a fish on his hook he catches up 
a bight of the line with his scoop and another below this with his 
reel, and thus reels up the line on these two sticks in loose coils 
till the fish is brought to the surface, when a skillful toss throws 
him off the barbless hook on the ice, where he gives one convul- 
sive flap and instantly freezes solid. The elastic whalebone line 
is thrown off the sticks without tangling, and paid out through 
the hole again for another trial. If fish are not found plenty at 
the first hole the fisherman shifts his ground until he “strikes a 
school.” They are sometimes so plenty that they may be caught 
as fast as they can be hauled up. One woman will frequently 
bring in upward of a bushel of the little fish—they are generally 
about five or six inches long—from a single day’s fishing. This 
fishing lasts until about the middle of May, when the ice begins 
to soften. A good many are also caught along the shore in No- 
vember in about a foot of water when there are tide cracks in 
the ice. At this season the Esquimaux use.a little rod about two 
feet long witha short line and a little ivory squid at which the 
fish bite. 
During the summer, many of the natives are encamped in 
tents at a place called Perginak, just at the bend of Elson bay, 
