MURDOCH. | ICE FISHING. 283 
Ist of February, and continues when the ice is favorable until the season 
is so far advanced that the ice has begun to melt and become rotten. The 
fish are especially to be found in places where there is a good-sized 
field of the season’s ice, 5 or 4 feet thick, inclosed by hummocks, and 
they sometimes occur in very great numbers. In 1882 there was a large 
field of this kind about 2 miles from the village and the fishing was 
carried on with great success, but in 1885 the ice was so much broken 
that the fish were very scarce. Some lads caught a few early in the 
season, but the fishery was soon abandoned. 
A hole about a foot in diameter is made through the ice with an ice 
pick, and the fragments dipped out either with the long-handled whale- 
bone scoop, or the little dipper made of two pieces of antler mounted 
on a handle about 2 feet long, which everyvody carries in the winter. 
The line is unreeled and let down through the hole till the jigs hang 
about a foot from the bottom. The fisherman holds in his left hand the 
dipper above mentioned, with which he keeps the hole clear of the ice 
crystals, which form very quickly, and in his right the reel which he 
jerkscontinually upand down. The tish, attracted by the white “jiggers,” 
begin nosing around them, when the upward jerk of the line hooks one 
of them in the under jaw or the belly. As soon as the fisherman feels 
the fish, he catches a bight of the line with the scoop in his left hand 
and draws it over to the left; then catches the line below this with the 
reel and draws it over to the right, and so on, thus reeling the line up 
in long hanks on these two sticks, without touching the wet line with 
his fingers. 
When the fish is brought to the surface of the ice, he is detached from 
the barbless hook with a dextrous jerk, and almost instantly freezes solid. 
The elastic whalebone line is thrown off the stick without kinking and 
let down again through the hole. When fish are plentiful, they are caught 
as fast as they can be hauled up, sometimes one on each “jigger.” If 
the fisherman finds no fish at the first hole he moves to another part of 
the field and tries again until he succeeds in “striking a school.” The 
fish vary in abundance on different days, being sometimes so plentiful , 
that L have known two or three children to catch a bushel in a few hours, 
while some days very few are to be taken. In addition to the polar 
cod, a few sculpins are also caught, and occasionally the two species of 
Lycodes (L. turnerii and coccineus) which voracious fish sometimes seize 
the little polar cod struggling on the “jigger” and are thus caught 
themselves. This fishery is chiefly carried on by the women, children, 
and old nen, who go out in parties of five or six, though the hunters 
sometimes go fishing when they have nothing else to do. There were 
generally thirty or forty people out at the fishing-ground every day in 
1882. 
Jiggers of this pattern appear to be used at Pitlekaj, from Nordends- 
kidld’s description,! but I have seen no account either there or elsewhere 
1 Vega, vol. 2, p. 110. 
