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Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913-18 



stones were four sealing harpoons. A few yards away there were three coal-oil 

 cans and a couple of sticks lying together on the ground. The sleds and heavy 

 spring tents of these natives had been left at a lake a few miles inland. 



Often the tribes partially break up as soon as their blubber caches are made, 

 though the full disbandment does not take place till early summer. Many 

 families even break off while the main body is still sealing on the ice, as there 

 are many different hunting and fishing grounds, and every man is free to choose 

 his own. In every region there are certain well-known highways that lead into 

 the interior, and the native naturally makes his caches at the entrance to the 

 one which leads to the particular district that he has chosen for his 

 summer home; then in the fall he returns by the same route. The spring cache- 

 sites therefore are often the same as the winter assembling-places. Thus the 



(Photo, by H. M. Anderson.) 

 Fig. 39. A cache on top of a high rock at Point Wollaston 



Akulhakattak natives cache their things at Lake AkuUiakattak, and the Copper- 

 mine natives on one or other of the islands off the mouth of the Coppermine 

 river. But in some tribal areas there is more than one highway into the interior, 

 and so more than one potential cache-site. Different famihes will then make 

 their caches in different places, so the group spHts up while the natives are still 

 Uving on the sea-ice. In the fall the famihes usually return first to their caches, 

 then, later, all unite in one common assembling-place. 



In southwest Victoria island, for some reason or other, there is no great 

 run of salmon up the creeks and rivers during the early summer, and the best 

 fishing lakes are inland in the Colville hills. Consequently, the Puivhrmiut who 

 inhabit this region have no inducement to remain on the coast after the sealing 

 has ended. Already, while still on the ice, they have spht up into smaller bands- 



