118 Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913-18 



rope, while the older people lean against the sleds and gossip. Half an hour later 

 the journey is resumed, but by the time they have travelled eight or ten miles 

 everyone is tired out, and the leader begins to search out a suitable place for the 

 hew camp. He takes his snow-sounder, and prods about in the snow till he 

 finds a spot where it is firm and deep, then draws his sled up alongside it and 

 begins to build his hut (or, if the season is too advanced for a snow hut, he erects 

 his tent instead) . His wife and child unharness the dogs and unlash the sled, then 

 help him in making their home. One by one the other families come up and do 

 likewise, so that two hours later a new settlement has arisen almost' identical 

 with the one they have just abandoned. 



TravelUng of this kind is very hard work, especially for those who iown 

 only one or two dogs. The natives perspire freely from the labour of dragging 

 their sleds, then when they stop to rest their bodies cool down and tend to 

 freeze all the more quickly. Yet during a howling blizzard, when the ther- 

 mometer registered -30° F. and the wind was blowing 30 miles an hour, I have 

 seen a woman squat down in the lea of her sled, draw her baby out from under 

 her hood and leisurely proceed to change its Httle garment, holding the naked 



.4imf^^^'^- ~^-^^>^m udM'" >^m >«^. 



Fig. 38. A rest during a migration, near Cape Krusenstern 



infant in the meantime fully exposed to the weather. Such was the severity 

 of the cold that day that several adults had their wrists badly frozen. Then 

 again they often have trouble with the runners of their sleds if their course 

 takes them over the land. In February, 1915, I accompanied a band of Cop- 

 permine river Eskimos on a migration near Locker point. Among them was 

 the shaman Uloksak ; his two wives were hauling side by side, with six dogs 

 following them, while Uloksak himself was hauling behind. The sled was 

 piled to its utmost capacity with all the miscellaneous articles of an Eskimo 

 household, and the big drum, with its membrane removed, was hanging from a 

 pole at one side. Trailing behind was a smaller sled that was also piled high 

 with bags. (Wealth is not always a blessing, even among the Eskimos; it 

 doubles the labour on the trail.) We were crossing the neck of land behind 

 Cape Krusenstern, and stones along the portage scraped some of the ice from 

 the runners of his sled, causing it to drag so heavily that he was compelled to 

 stop and re-ice them. With a few shavings and some blubber he Mndled a 

 small fire and melted some snow in the cooking pot; then he took a box from 

 his sled and propped up one runner. The younger wife filled her mouth with 

 the water and poured it over the bearskin mitten her husband was holding in 



