40 Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913-18 



was gradually peopled again by natives from the surrounding districts. This 

 would account for the present distribution of the population, the great numbers 

 that dwell in Bathurst inlet, and the comparatively few that are scattered along 

 the south coast of Victoria island and between Bathurst inlet and the Copper- 

 mine river on the mainlajid. The tradition is borne out also by the statements 

 of mdividual natives as to their birthplaces. Relatively few of the men who 

 were sealing off Bathurst inlet in the winter of 1916 had been born in that region; 

 they had gone there from Umingmaktok, or from the Coppermine river area, or 

 else from the opposite shore of Victoria island. Others again had been born 

 there, but their parents or grand-parents were immigrants. One old man stated 

 that his grandfather had come there by sled from Asiak, beyond Kent peninsula, 

 accompanied by five other famiUes.' Four of the famiUes returned to Asiak, 

 but the other two, including his grandfather, stayed on in Bathurst inlet, where 

 their descendants are living still. 



Two natives from Asiak, beyond Kent peninsula, were Uving off Bathurst 

 inlet in the winter of 1916. One had come in the autumn, and was passing his 

 first winter in the country. He had married a Kilusiktok woman, but intended 

 to return in the spring to his native home and take his wife back with him. 

 The Asiagmiut, he said, were more numerous than the Kilusiktok natives with 

 whom he was living, more numerous too than the Ekaluktomiut on the opposite 

 side of Dease strait. Mr. Stefansson understood from the Prince Albert sound 

 natives that the Asiagmiut might number between fifty and a hundred, and this 

 would correspond to my own information. Kent peninsula probably forms 

 part of their country, though it is called by a name of its own, Kiglinguyak; 

 nothing is known as to its inhabitants, if there be any at all at the present time. 

 The Asiagmiut who visit the Bathurst inlet natives seem to travel by the same 

 route as Hanbury, between Kent peninsula and the mainland. Rae met three 

 natives near Cape Flinders, and Hanbury found others all the way from the 

 east side of Kent peninsula to Ogden bay. Near Ogden bay there were six 

 families in one settlement, and forty-five natives in another, but Hanbury 

 does not mention to what group they belonged; possibly they were Asiagmiut 

 also. Probably there are many local groups in this region just as elsewhere, 

 though their names are not known to the western natives, who usually call all 

 the people east of them Kivalirmiut (i.e., Easterners). Beyond the Asiagmiut, 

 Coronation gulf natives know of the Netsilingmiut and one or two other groups, 

 but they could give us no estimate concerning their numbers. 



We did not meet A^ith any natives from Ekaluktok, though some of them 

 visited and traded with the Bathurst inlet people in the spring of 1915, returning 

 to their own country again before the ice broke up in the strait. The population 

 of this group, according to the reports of other natives, was somewhere about 

 fifty. The Rev. Mr. Girling has written to me stating that one of his mission 

 parties, led by the Rev. E. Hester, visited the Ekaluktomiut in the winter of 

 1918, when they were encamped midway between Victoria island and Kent 

 peninsula. At that time they numbered only a few families. Mr. Stefansson 

 deduced a much higher estimate for the group, about two hundred, judging by 

 the accounts he received from the Prince Albert sound natives; but either his 

 estimate is exaggerated or only a small portion of the tribe frequents Dease strait. 

 It was possibly these people whom CoUinson met in the neighbourhood of Cam- 

 bridge bay, though they then numbered between two and three hundred. More 

 probably, however, they were Kiglinirmiut, since that group appears to have 

 been far more important formerly than now.^ Rae found no recent indications 

 of people between Cambridge bay and Pelly point, but Lieutenant Hansen came 

 upon thirty or forty natives in the neighbourhood of Taylor island. He under- 



'His grandfather's name was Kingaulik; the other men in the party were Arnauyuk, Aumeyok, and 

 Aitauk, and two others whose names he could not remember. 



>Collinson, p. 284. The Bathurst inlet patrol found many of the Bathurst inlet natives calling them- 

 selves 'Killin-e-miut.' 



