106 FISHING-GROUNDS OF NORTH AMEEIOA. 



the line is dfopped into the water. The hook is made of white walrus ivory, furnished with a 

 sharp pin set in obliquely, but without a barb. The whiteness of the ivory, which is kept 

 constantly in motion, attracts the fish, but no bait whatever is used. In November, when the ice 

 becomes very thick, and the cold increases, the fish retire to deeper water, and the fishing is over 

 until the following spring. In the summer the natives are occupied with the salmon fishery and 

 pay no attention to these small fish. They are preserved by removing the intestines, and drying 

 in large bunches strung on seal-line, or by throwing them as they are into long cylindrical baskets 

 made of twisted grass, and keeping them entire in a frozen state. . . . They are among the 

 most palatable of the many fish found in these seas, and the number preserved is so great as to 

 be almost incalculable. They serve the natives for food either boiled or in the frozen state. They 

 also form an important article of dog-feed in the northern portions of Alaska, near the coast. 

 They are well suited, from their abundance and firm flesh, to be used as bait in the cod-fishery.'" 

 The wachna extends southward into Cook's Inlet, where I have seen individuals a foot in 

 length J their average length so far as observed by me is about ten inches and their weight a half 

 pound or less. The form is much like that of the tom-cod, but by jjressiug on the sides of the 

 body a little behind the breast fins a series of small knobs will be felt on the ends of the lateral 

 processes of the backbone; these are caused by white, spoon-shaped, flexible caps that fit on the 

 processes and help to form a sort of roof over the abdominal cavity; the presence of these 

 appendages makes it necessary to use another name than Oadus for the genus, and as Swainson 

 h^ proposed to call it Tilesia, though on trivial grounds, his name may be used. It is usual to 

 see traveling parties of Innuits in summer supplied with strings of wachna with the intestines 

 partly removed and a very gamy flavor substituted. The hook of walrus ivory is still used, and 

 farther north it is attached to a line of whalebone splints. 



The herring run in Norton Sound is of very short duration, the fishery lasting only a fortnight, 

 but the schools are enormously large. Seines are used in taking them. The fish are kept until 

 they become half putrid, and are then considered at their best. 



Parties traveling in summer by sea in this region are usually well supplied with a small 

 flat-fish {Pleuronectes glacialis), which has a close resemblance to the "fool-fish" or "Christmas 

 fish" of Massachusetts Bay and the Maine coast, together with waohnce and smelt. 



The sea boat in common use is the hidarra or haidar {oomiaJc of the Innuit), a flat-bottomed, 

 walrus-skin covering stretched over a wooden frame- work and securely lashed with whalebone 

 and seal skin strips or sinew. Occasionally an oar is used, the wooden rowlock being lashed 

 to a rib with thongs, but short paddles are more general. A small square sail is always used 

 when the wind is favorable, and when not forced to embark against wind and tide the native 

 emulates his civilized brother, and waits. The hidarra serves not only as a mode of conveyance 

 by day, but also as a shelter for the night. As this boat is so largely used throughout Northern 

 Alaska it will be of interest to quote portions of Captain Hooper's remarks on the subject : 



"An ordinary oomiak contains, in addition to the stock-in-trade of oil, skins, etc., a tent of 

 drilling or deer-skin, guns, traps, spears, bows and arrows, a Icyack, a seal-skin poke filled with 

 water, a quantity of dried meat, a sled, several pairs of snow-shoes, a fish-net, and several smaller 

 nets for catching birds, a large drum on a pole for the use of the ' shaman,' and several seal-skin 

 bags containing skin clothing. The personnel consists of three or four men, about as many 

 women, and two or three children. Add to these two or three dogs, each with a litter of puppies, 

 and some idea may be formed of what a traveling oomiak contains. The working dogs are often 



1 Report of CommiasioDer of Agriculture for 1870 (1871), p. 380. 



