Country of the Copper Eskimos 



25 



salmon, and the Eskimo inhabitants spend four or five months each year in 

 wandering about from one fishing-ground to another. The ridges themselves 

 are almost devoid of vegetation, but there are pleasant meadows here and there 

 round the margins of the lakes. Most of the deer that remain in this part of 

 Victoria island during the summer, however, find better pasture on the plains 

 nearer the sea. 



Several large creeks, almost rivers, flow out of the hills into Simpson bay. 

 One issues out into the sea beside a high knoll named Tipfiktok, near where 

 Linklater island is marked on the chart. Still another, known as Epiullik, has 

 its exit northeast of Read island'. The Eskimos sometimes gather at Epiullik 

 in the autumn. More often they assemble at the mouth of the Okauyarvik cteek 

 a little farther east, in a well-sheltered harbour where Rae marks " 15 May." 

 Bearded seals abound both at this place and at Epiullik in the autumn, lying 

 on top of the youcg ice. Okauyarvik is an excellent place from which to start 

 the overland journey to Prince Albert sound in the spring, though the Colville 

 hills can be crossed almost anywhere by sled. The Okauyarvik creek has its 

 source in Lake Kigiaktallik, one of the larger lakes in the Colville hills, and 



Fig. 3. Frozen falls on Okauyarvik creek, S.W. Victoria island 



winds about in a roughly SSW. direction for some 40 miles before it finally reaches 

 the sea. A few miles east of it the Kimiryuak, probably the largest creek in 

 this region, falls into Forsyth bay, and a little south of that again, in a rather 

 deep bight just below Clouston bay, falls the Kogluktok river. Where the coast 

 approaches nearest to the Liston and Sutton islands there is a point called 

 Nuvuk; but beyond this the Eskimo names for the salient topographical features 

 have not been recorded. The whole coast from Ingnerin to Lady Franklin 

 point consists of a low gravel ridge, for the dolomite which protrudes in high 

 cliffs farther to the west continues inland when the coast turns south, and the 

 different streams from the interior have to cut deep channels through it on their 

 way to the sea. 



'Between these two streams apparently is the district called IgluUk; Read island (or Beads isla,nd, for 

 the charts have both names; the natives call it KigiUanneuk) lies about three miles off the shore, and 

 consists of low gravel terraces of'dolomite, with here and there boulders of diabase and granite. 



