354 THE POINT BARROW ESKIMO. 
runner is fitted a heavy shoe of clear ice, as long as the runner, and 
fully 1 foot high by 6 inches thick. The sledge with these ice runners 
is estimated to weigh, even when unloaded, upwards of 200 or 300 
pounds, but it appears that the smoothness of running more than 
counterbalances the extra weight. At any rate these shoes are almost 
universally employed on the sleds which make the long journey from 
the rivers in the spring with heavy loads of meat, fish, and skins. One 
native, in 1883, shod his sledges with salt-water ice in this way before 
starting for the hunting grounds. As these ice shoes are usually put 
on at the rivers, I had no opportunity of seeing the process, though I 
have seen the sledges thus shod after their return to the village. 
Lieut. Ray, who saw the process, describes it as follows: 
“From the ice on a pond that is free from fracture they cut the pieces the length 
of a sled runner, 8 inches thick and 10 inches wide; into these they cut a groove 
deep enough to receive the sled runner up to the beam; the sled is carefully fitted 
into the groove, and secured by pouring in water, a little at a time and allowing it 
to freeze. Great care is taken in this part of the operation, for should the workman 
apply more than a few drops at a time, the slab of ice would be split and the work 
all to do over again; after the ice is firmly secured the sled is turned bottom up and 
the ice-shoe is carefully rounded with a knife, and then smoothed by wetting the 
naked hand and passing it over the surface until it becomes perfectly glazed.” ! 
Fic. 356.—Railed sledge, diagrammatic (from photograph). 
In traveling they take great care of these runners, keeping them 
smooth and polished, and mending all cracks by pouring in fresh water. 
They are also careful to shade them from the noonday sun, which at 
this season of the year is warm enough to loosen the shoes, for this 
purpose hanging a cloth or skin over the sunny side of the sled.’ 
We were unfortunately not able to bring home specimens of either style 
of large sled. The rail sled (kimoti) isusually about 8 or 9 feet long, and 
24 to 3 feet wide, and the rail at the back not over 24 feet high. The 
thick curved runners, about 5 or 6 inches wide (see diagram, Fig. 356, 
‘Rep. Point Barrow Exp., p. 27. 
?Schwatka, in ‘‘ Nimrod in the North," (p. 159) describes a practice among the ‘‘ Netschillik,” of 
King William's Land, which appears very much like this, though his description is somewhat obscure 
in details. Itis as follows: ‘‘We found the runners shod with pure ice. Trenches the length of 
the sledge are dug in the ice, and into these the runners are lowered some two or three inches, yet 
not touching the bottom of the trench by fully the same distance. Water is then poured in and al- 
lowed to freeze, and when the sledge is lifted out it is shod with shoes of perfectly pure and trans- 
parent ice.’ Strangely enough, these curious ice shoes are not mentioned by Schwatka’s companions, 
Gilder and Klutsehak, nor by Schwatka himself in his paper on the “Netschillik” in Science, al- 
though Klutschak describes and figures a sledge made wholly of ice among the Netsillingmiu.. 
(‘Als Eskimo, ete.” p. 76). Also referred to by Boas (‘‘ Central Eskimo,” p. 533). 
