372 W. Thalbitzer 



February and March were also unfavourable for sledging, with 

 heavy snowfalls and storms. Sledges arrived some few times from 

 the north, but the visitors quickly returned as soon as they had 

 bought what they wanted, being afraid that the ice would break up 

 and cut them off from home. It was not until April, when the 

 snow lay high enough to cover the roof of our house after a heavy 

 snowstorm on April 7th, that calm, cold weather set in which 

 favoured sledging. Being accustomed to sledging from my winter 

 in West Greenland I drove my own East Greenland sledge, with a 

 span of 5 dogs, along the coast southwards. The tour lasted from 

 the 12th to the 19th April and I was accompanied by the hunter 

 Keersagaq, who carried our provisions and baggage on his sledge. 

 Our route led first over the southern valley of the island and up 

 over the heights between the Aamangaa and Oongortoq hills to 

 Sermilik. This part of the journey I knew already from a ski-tour 

 I had made in the winter-dark of January with my wife and 8 

 natives. Just as then we passed the night in the house at Ikkatteq. 

 Next day we crossed the broad mouth of Sermilik Fjord, through a 

 forest of frozen-in icebergs and enormous ice hummocks, and drove 

 up on land again behind the mountain Angeen. Late in the day we 

 reached the house at Qeqertaalaq, whose owner Napparttuko we had 

 met on the way, with the skin of a bear he had just killed. I 

 returned afterwards to Sermilik and in the following days visited all 

 the settlements in this fjord, following the sledging routes which lay 

 along the coasts and among the labyrinth of ice-hummocks over the 

 fjord. 



Each dog has its own trace, almost at the same distance from 

 the sledge^). But the females are usually placed a couple of head 

 lengths in front of the males and the oldest, most experienced dog 

 a head in front of the others. They are mainly guided by the whip, 

 the lash of which is long enough to reach the snout or at least the 

 hind-quarters of the dog furthest from the sledge. Much practice 

 is required to use it. One must know how to light just on the 

 hind-quarter or the ear of the dog, intended to be punished. As 

 answer to a successful "hit" the dog howls and the whole span is 

 stimulated to greater effort. The team is driven to the right bj"^ 

 aiming the lash alongside the dog furthest to the left and whipping 

 up the snow immediately to its left side. It is forced to the left by 

 the outermost dog on the right feeling the lash close to its right 



') Among the West Eskimo in Alaska the dogs are spanned to the sledge in pairs 

 in a long row, two and two behind each other (in files of tлvo). In front there 

 is a single dog as leader. See Woldt-Jacobsen (1887) p. 155. 



