Summer Life 139 



footgear of the whole family, five persons including myself. This in itself 

 was no light task, since the seal-skin soles of our boots used to wear right 

 through after two day's trekking over the stony ground. Milukkattak had 

 only Avranna's boots and her own to mend, though later I induced her to 

 mend mine also, thereby reUeving Higilak of a little work. The skins of 

 the deer we shot were scraped by both the men and the women, after which 

 they were laid out on the ground to dry. 



August 24: We trekked north again, securing one caribou. 



August 25 : We trekked north for about three miles, and shot two polar bears, 

 a mother and her cub. 



August 26 : Our camp was moved about four miles north to the place where 

 the carcass of the mother bear was lying. Here we remained four days, 

 feasting on the bear until the greater part of it was consumed. The dogs 

 were so satiated with meat and fat they they could scarcely move. Mean- 

 while our caribou skins were drying, so that by the time we came to trek 

 again they had lost half their original weight. Caribou were sighted on 

 the 27th, and we secured foUr as the result of a drive. The skins, sinew, 

 back-fat and leg bones were taken back to camp, the remainder was cached 

 in stone cairns for the use of the Eskimos in the following summer. Tusayok 

 and KesuUik departed on the 29th to return to our old camp at Kugaluk, 

 where they had left Hakka with their tent. 



August 30: We started back for the Kugaluk river, carrying with us a large 

 quantity of bear-fat to take the place of seal-blubber in our lamps when we 

 should reach Lake Numikhoin again. Our packs were very heavy, so we 

 camped early in the afternoon after travelling only about five miles. Avranna 

 had found a plank on the shore two days before while he was away hunting, 

 and had trimmed it a little to make a sled-runner. He and Ikpakhuak now 

 went down to the beach and brought it in to camp. 



August 31 — September 1: The natives decided that a new sled-runner was not 

 needed, so Ikpakhuak split the plank to make tent poles, using an antler 

 for a wedge and a large stone as a mallet. The chips came in useful for 

 fuel, since both willow and heather were scarce in our immediate vicinity. 

 The natives went hunting on the 31st, and killed two yearling caribou. 

 The rest of the time was spent in feasting. There was a lake near the camp 

 almost divided into two by a long sand-bar. Round its margin numbers of 

 young salmon trout, from an inch to an inch and a half long, were hiding 

 under the stones and boulders. Milukkattak and Kanneyuk idled away 

 several hours in catching them; all that they caught they devoured immedi- 

 ately. 



September 2 : We broke camp and travelled south about 14 miles to the Kuga- 

 luk river, where we rejoined Tusayok and his family. KesuUik had caught 

 a few lake trout in the river, and Hakka boiled them for our supper. 



September 3 — 4 : The women boiled down all the caribou back-fat that we had 

 accumulated, and ran the tallow into bags so that the dogs could carry 

 them on their backs. Rain fell each night and morning, but the sky cleared 

 before noon. Near our camp the river had cut through a bed of dolomite 

 running southeast by northwest at right angles to its course. The gorge 

 thus formed was about 300 yards long and from 50 to 100 yards wide, with 

 perpendicular cliffs about 40 feet high. The Eskimos jigged their lines 

 from a ledge half way down the face of the cliff, and caught about a score 

 of lake trout from the deep pool below. Just below the gorge, from the 

 bed of the river, they gathered several lumps of pyrites, which they kept 

 for striking fire. 



September 5 : Our plan now was to return to Okauyarvik and intercept the 

 caribou as they migrated south. We therefore trekked east on this day, 



