Winter Life 117 



house-clothes for the clean, warm, ornamented clothing that is kept for travelling 

 and for ceremonial occasions such as dances. Both then lash everything tightly 

 on the sled while the children harness up the dogs. Yet even when the lashings 

 are all firmly secured the packing is not quite finished, for there is always a 

 multitude of shoes, socks, sticks, poles, harpoons, tins, pots, scraps of skin too 

 precious to throw away, and odds and ends of the most extraordinary kind which 

 must be fastened in some way or other to the top and sides of the sled, either 

 pushed under the lashings or tied on with threads of sinew. This after-packing, 

 in fact, often takes longer than the first. 



Fig. 37. A migration train near Cape Krusenstern 



At last everything is finished, the yelping dogs are hitched to the sled, wife 

 and husband hitch their harness on also, and the family is ready to start. Other 

 sleds have already preceded them, and soon there is a long train extending over 

 a mile perhaps, each sled, as a rule, following exactly in the trail of the one in 

 front. Here a woman is pulling in front, with a daughter or niece at her side; 

 behind her are the dogs, which she urges on with cries of ha ha ha. Then comes 

 the husband, also in the yoke, steering the sled round hummocks, and heaving 

 it over those unavoidable ones on which the sled threatens to stick. All three, 

 husband, wife and daughter, carry walking-sticks to help them along. The 

 man has another use for his ; when his cry of hok hok hok fails to spur on one of 

 the dogs, he seizes its trace, jerks it back till it comes within reach of his stick 

 and smites it a stinging blow. Usually though the mere striking of their traces 

 is sufficient to keep the dogs working. Suddenly the sled sticks. The man 

 stoops down, lifts all the traces with one hand to make the dogs start together 

 with a jerk, and heaves with all his might. If it still holds he knocks down the 

 snow from the front of the runner and hea,ves to one side to set the sled swinging 

 a little until finally it moves on again. 



Behind this sled there is another with only one woman in front of the dogs 

 and the husband behind, while a little boy clings to the side of the sled. On the 

 next, father and son are pulling side by side, while the aged wife drags herself 

 along by holdibg on to the lashings. The fourth has a curious sail-like apparatus 

 on top. Only the man is pulling, his wife trudging along at the side of the sled; 

 the queer-looking " sail " on top is a deerskin wrapped round the baby to protect 

 it from the wind. So the whole train moves slowly along for two or three miles; 

 then tlie front sled stops, the dogs are unhitched, and one or two taken back to 

 help some kinsman far in the rear. One after another as they come up the 

 natives unhitch their dogs and sit or stand around to rest. A little frozen meat 

 is divided up for lunch, and the children run to and fro, playing hide and seek, 

 or raven^ or some other game that serves to keep them warm. Several of the 

 men and women perhaps begin a skipping competition, using a dog-trace for a 



