MURDOCH.] SEAL HUNTING. 269 
with the rifle and retrieving harpoon, traveling many miles among the 
ice hummocks in search of such holes. When a seal shows his head he 
is shot at with the rifle, and the hunter, if successful, secures his game 
with the harpoon. This method of hunting is practiced throughout the 
winter wherever open holes form in the ice. A native going to visit his 
nets or to examine the condition of the ice always carries his rifle and 
retrieving harpoon, in case he should come across an open hole where 
seals might be found. The hunt at this season is accompanied with 
considerable danger, as the ice pack is not yet firmly consolidated and 
portions of it frequently move offshore with a shift of the wind, so that the 
hunter runs the risk of being carried out to sea. The natives exercise 
considerable care, and generally avoid crossing a crack if the wind, 
however light, is blowing offshore; but in spite of their precautions 
men are every now and then carried off to sea and never return. 
The hunters meet with many exciting adventures. On the morning 
of November 24, 1882, all the heavy ice outside of the bar broke away 
from the shore, leaving a wide lead, and began to move rapidly to the 
northeast, carrying with it three seal hunters. They were fortunately 
near enough to the village to be seen by the loungers on the village 
hill, who gave the alarm. An umiak was immediately mounted on a 
flat sled and carried out over the shore ice with great rapidity, so that 
the men were easily rescued. The promptness and energy with which 
the people at the village acted showed how well the danger was appre- 
ciated. 
At this season of the year a single calm night is sufficient to cover all 
the holes and leads with young ice strong enough to support a man, 
and occasionally before the pack comes in the open sea freezes over. 
In this young ice the seals make their breathing holes (adlu), “ about 
the Bigness of a Halfpenny,” as Egede says, and the natives employ the 
stabbing harpoon for their capture. At the present day this is seldom 
used alone, but the seal is shot through the head as he comes to the 
surface, and the spear only used to secure him. Seals which have been 
shot in this way are sometimes carried off by the current before they 
ean be harpooned. As far as I can learn, this practice of shooting seals 
at the adlu is peculiar to Point Barrow (including probably the rest of 
the Arctic coast as far as Kotzebue Sound), though the use of the wna, 
as already stated, is very general. 
This method of hunting can generally be prosecuted only a few days 
at a time, as the movements of the pack soon break up the fields of 
young ice, though new fields frequently form in the course of the season. 
After the January gales the pack is so firmly consolidated that there 
are no longer any open holes or leads, and when the spring leads open 
young ice seldom forms, so that this method of hunting is as a rule con- 
fined to the period between the middle of October and the early part of 
January. 
With the departure of the sun, about the middle of November, begins 
