144 Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913-18 



seals in mid-summer, many of the natives would live at that season exactly as 

 in winter; the skins they require for clothing they would obtain by trade with 

 their neighbours. Contrarily, if trapping for foxes ever becomes profitable, 

 and the natives are assured of fuel and food apart from seals, nothing in their 

 social organization or their religious beliefs will prevent them from abandoning 

 their winter life given over to sealing, exactly as their kinsmen have done in 

 northern Alaska. The introduction of rifles, and the stimulus it has given to 

 the hunting of caribou on land, has already shortened the period of sealing on 

 the sea-ice. In fact there is really no fundamental change in their lives at the 

 two seasons, but merely an external difference occasioned by, and directly 

 reflecting, the difference in their climatic and economic environment. 



