Hunting and Fishing 151 



upoji its back and ripped open its flank with his knife. These inland natives 

 between Bathurst inlet and Hudson bay dig pits, karigittak, for caribou in deep 

 mounds of snow, and plant knives with upturned points at the bottom, con- 

 cealing the hole with grass and snow. Sometimes they set up snow-blocks 

 beside the pits and urinate on them, so that the deer will be attracted by the 

 odour, break through the crust, and be impaled on the knives fit the bottom. 

 A Puivlik Eskimo who made a similar pit near the mouth of the Coppermine 

 river in 1915 caught two wolves in it. 



A. 



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Fig. 49. A representation of a caribou drive, drawn by the Copper Eskimo Ikpakhuak 



Deadfalls for foxes were common enough when we entered the country, 

 for during the three preceding years Captain Bernard had given a great impetus 

 to trapping by trading mainly for skins. I saw a very typical deadfall on Victoria 

 island. It was made of snow-blocks, and had a small rectangular doorway leading 

 into a square chamber with a snow-block roof. The roof was weighted with a stone 

 and supported underneath by a perpendicular stick, itself pivoted on another 

 stick that pointed inwards and was baited on its inner end, about an inch and a 

 half from the ground, with a piece of blubber. The fox had to enter the chamber 

 before it could seize the blubber; in so doing it displaced the upright stick and 

 brought the roof down on top of itself. 



Wolves, rabbits, foxes and brown bears are shot from cover in the same way 

 as caribou. From the top of a low knoll one day Ikpakhuak saw a fox down in 

 the valley below him. He kept carefully under cover and made a squeaking 

 sound with his lips like the cry of a young bird. The fox ran straight up the side 

 of the knoll and came within twenty yards before it noticed the man and fled. 

 I have seen Ikpakhuak try to quiet startled rabbits in the same manner, by 

 emitting a smacking sound with his lips such as the rabbits themselves make. 

 Once, too, after shooting a doe, he tried to attract its tiny fawn by "chucking" 

 after the manner of its mother. 



The brown bear is far more dreaded than the white bear, apparently because 

 it is more ready to turn on the hunter when brought to bay. We saw one man 

 with his thumb torn off, another with his head badly scarred, and in each case 

 the injury had been inflicted by a wounded brown bear that had turned and 

 mauled the hunter before he could deliver the death stroke with his knife. A 

 Dolphin and Union strait Eskimo named Tahgvak had a startling experience 



