120 Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913-18 



mouths of creeks and rivers, crawl out on top of the ice to bask in the sunshine . 

 Occasionally a native, having no rifle, will stalk the smaller rough seal 

 as it lies beside its hole, and when there are no more ice-cakes to cover his ap- 

 proach, he will dash forward and try to harpoo;n it before it dives. Long before 

 the snow has melted froni the ice, however, (before the middle of May in an 

 ordinary season) the majority of the Eskimos have cached their blubber and 

 clothes on the shore, or on islands near the coast, and gone inland to fish and 

 hunt. 



A chronological record of the movements of the Dolphin and Union strait 

 Eskimos in the winter and spring of 1915-16 will illustrate this account of their 

 winter life. From December, 1915, to February, 1916, they were all united 

 in one settlement of thirty-three snow huts, on the shore of Illuvillik, the most 

 westerly island of the Liston and Sutton group. Some time during the first 

 week of February they migrated in a body ten miles to the west and built new 

 snow-huts on the ice. They remained here almost a month, then moved four 

 or five miles south-southwest. Throughout March they were visited by large 

 numbers of Coronation gulf natives, some from the Coppermine river basin 

 and others from as far east as Bathurst inlet. On April 3, the settlement split 

 up. One band of sixteen families made new homes ten miles farther west, 

 four families migrated about the same distance north-northwest, and the remain- 

 der, save for two or three who left for Coronation gulf, moved eastward again 

 and camped on the ice between the two eastern islands of the Liston and Sutton 

 group, where they could seal in an area that had not been hunted over during 

 the winter. The eleven families of this last settlement now set up nine tents 

 to live in. The larger settlement to the west, on the other hand, consisted of 

 snow huts only, the weather not being as yet so warm as to make these dwelhngs 

 untenable. Their exact movements later I do not know, but by the end of 

 April the members of the larger settlement had all moved away, some to 

 Okauyarvik on the north side of Dolphin and Union strait, where they were 

 hunting caribou, the rest to the mouth of a creek twelve mileB east of Bernard 

 harbour, where they were shooting bearded seals and trying to intercept the 

 caribou. The natives who had camped between the two islands were slowly 

 moving northeast at the same time towards the land, and by May had reached 

 the shore not far from Clouston bay. In June there were nine families at the 

 fishing creek four miles east of Bernard harbour, two at the other creek twelve 

 miles east, and six at a creek that fiows into a bay just west of Cape Krusenstern. 

 Thfe' other natives who had wintered in Dolphin and Union strait were all lost 

 to view in Victoria island, with the exception of those who had gone down into 

 Coronation gulf. 



