Summer Life 123 



each of these now travels inland by sled, carrying the lamps and a little blubber 

 to furnish them with fuel until the snow has partly melted and they 

 can gather the wretched okauyak. By slow stages, with many stop-overs 

 at different places to fish, they finally reach some well-known lake, the centre 

 of a fruitful fishing region. There they remain until early July, when the ground 

 is growing bare of snow, and travelling by sled, or even with its substitute a 

 polar bear skin, is no longer practicable. There, then, they cache their sleds 

 and lamps, together with their heavy tents and all their surplus clothing. The 

 band splits up, the families radiate, one going north perhaps to a lake to fish, 

 two others east, two others again perhaps southwest. Thus they wander about 

 in July from one lake to another, sometimes uniting for a few days to enjoy 

 each other's company, then scattering aga n. Fishing is their main pursuit, 

 and as long as the lakes are covered with ice they continue to accumulate trout 

 and salmon, which they dry in the sun and store away in caches for consump- 

 tion during the fall and early winter. Caribou are plentiful in June, but in July, 

 when the migration has ended, the herds break up and the deer are few and 

 scattered. The Eskimos, as long as they had only bows and arrows, gave little 

 attention to hunting them at this period, for their flesh is lean with long travelling, 

 and their fur useless for clothing until they gain their summer coats, which is not 

 until early in August. 



In other regions, where the salmon migrate in numbers, the natives usually 

 gather in July and spear them as they make their way up the streams. Sealing 

 ends, as a rule, towards the close of May, when cracks develop in the ice and the 

 seals no longer need to resort to the holes they have kept open all the winter. 

 From this date, then, until the appearance of the salmon the natives linger near 

 the creeks, and either fish for tom-cod through the sea-ice, or go inland a few 

 miles to fish in the lakes, although a few hunters, having rifles now, remain on 

 the shore and intercept the bands of caribou as they pass north. In July, as 

 soon as the salmon begin to run, the natives gather at their salmon weirs, which 

 are either at the mouths of the creeks or near their outlets from the lakes. Some- 

 times a whole tribe will reassemble at these fishing-weirs; more often the different 

 families spread out over different creeks so that each may secure a> greater 

 individual toll. The three creeks where the Noahognirmiut spear salmon have 

 been mentioned already. Farther east there are other well-known "salmon- 

 ponds"; the cascade about eighteen miles up the Rae river, below Bloody fall 

 on the Coppermine, at the rapids near the mouth of the Tree river, and, in 

 Victoria island, on the creek that flows into Cambridge bay.* Hearne and 

 Franklin both came across natives below Bloody fall. The former remarks that 

 the salmon were "so numerous that when a light pole armed with a few spikes, 

 which was the instrument the old (Eskimo) woman used, was put under water 

 and hauled up with a jerk, it was scarcely possible to miss them. Some of my 

 Indians tried the method, for curiosity, with the old woman's staff, and seldom 

 got less than two at a jerk, sometimes three or four."^ 



By the end of July the salmon run is over, and the ice has melted from all 

 except the very largest lakes. The caribou in the meantime have grown fat 

 with peaceful grazing, and their skins are now in their prime. The Eskimos, 

 leaving safely stored away in stone caches whatever fish they have caught, 

 and packing their light tents and a few spare articles of clothing on their backs, 

 wander off to hunt. Wherever the country is barren and reindeer moss scarce, 

 the deer are scattered and far apart; then the Eskimos too must scatter out to 

 cover as wide an area as possible. On both sides of Dolphin and Union strait, 

 therefore, the traveller will find scattered families roaming about from place to 

 place, here today and gone tomorrow in their restless search for game. Days 



'See Collinson, p. 279; Rae, Journ. Royal Geogr. Soc, Vol. 22, 1852. 

 'Heame, p. 183. 



