52 Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913-18 



and gathered, laughing, around the wrestlers. Some of us were sttangers 

 and had to introduce ourselves, so the leader of the Kanghiryuarmiut came 

 and stood before each one of us in turn and asked us our names. As soon as 

 the introductions were over we helped the newcomers to drag up their sled 

 and unload it, then watched them set up their tent, after which we all filed 

 inside and ate of their food. Two of the Puivhk men in the afternoon erected 

 a dance-house of snow, roofing it over with skins and with the sheet that covered 

 my sled, since the temperature at this time of the year would not permit of the 

 usual dome of snow. The ceremonial dance of welcome took place in the evening, 

 though everyone was eagerly watching for the second family of the northern 

 natives to arrive. This did not happen till midnight, when a little girl ran 

 out to meet them and assure them that they were welcome, while the rest of 

 us remained on the bank. Again we filed into their tent and ate some of their 

 food, but the dance that was to be given in their honour was postponed till 

 the following day. 



A httle trading was carried on between the two groups late in the evening 

 of the first day, but most of it. took place the following morning before breakfast. 

 It was done individually, sometinles out of doors, sometimes in one or other of 

 the tents. The northern natives brought polar bear skins, copper-headed 

 ice-chisels, musk-ox skins and a few miscellaneous articles like polar bear mittens, 

 which they exchanged for iron knives, tins, deerskin clothes, tent poles, etc.; 

 the regular price for an ice-chisel was an iron snow-knife. One of the Puivlik 

 women exchanged a small knife for a stone pot, the northern woman being 

 given an old pemmican can to serve her for cooking instead.^ 



Economically these northern Eskimos are of little importance to their 

 southern neighbours, at least at the present day. Most of the things that are 

 lacking to the natives of Dolphin and Union strait are more easily procurable 

 from the Coronation gulf Eskimos during the winter, when they can be packed 

 on sleds, than from the Kanghiryuak during the summer, when many of their 

 possessions are cached on the coast and only what is absolutely necessary is 

 ever carried inland. * Musk-ox skins and ladles of musk-ox horn can be obtained, 

 through the Coppermine natives, from the people of Bathurst inlet, while, as 

 regards copper, the Coppermine natives themselves can easily supply all that 

 is needed. In fact it would seem that the Coppermine valley, rather than 

 either Victoria island or Bathurst inlet, was always the main source of the supply 

 of this metal, the amygdaloidal nodules scd,ttered over the surface being perhaps 

 more numerous and more accessible here than elsewhere. At all events most 

 of the Dolphin and Union strait natives possessed one or more nodules from 

 this region, which they had either gathered themselves or obtained by barter. 

 From one Puivlik native we obtained a solid block weighing nearly forty pounds 

 which had come from the Coppermine; originally it had been twice as large. 

 It must be remembered, however, that iron has largely superseded copper during 

 the last ten or fifteen years; and that while the softer metal alone was procurable 

 the deposits at the head of Prince Albert sound must have been far more im- 

 portant economically than they are now. 



The most valuable commodity that the Kanghiryuak natives furnish at 

 the present day is the skin of the polar bear, small strips of which are in use 

 everywhere for icing the runners of sleds, and in many cases also for footpads 

 when sealing. Even polar bear skins however can be obtained by the southern 

 Eskimos in other ways. Occasionally a stray animal wanders down into Dolphin 

 and Union strait in the early part of the winter and is killed; or one will linger 

 on the land near Cape Baring during the summer, where the Puivhk natives in 

 1915 killed a mother and its cub. The animals rarely, if ever, penetrate into 

 Coronation gulf, but the Eskimos of that region can obtain their skins by bar- 



'Cf. Stetansson, My Life with the Eskimo, p. 273. 



