June a, jtgoo.l 
several members of the party sat up all night reading and 
wruing letters at the uarKest Hours. 
Uhe mornmg found the ship steaming across the narrow 
Benng bea tor i'ort ^„larence. King's isiand, where there is 
a very interesting village of extremely primitive iLsKxmo, 
was passed, i hese people hve m caves in the rock. There 
is no beach on their island, and a landing is impossible 
except- in fair weather. They enter and leave their 
boatS from a platform of poles built out from the preci- 
pice, but when the sea is very high, while it is possible to 
drop down into the boat and so to go away from the 
island, no landing can be made. 
Arrived at Fort Clarence, ten whalers were found at 
anchor waiting for the ice to go out. Short trips were 
being made m various directions by members of the 
crew. One man, a week before, had killed tv/enty wal- 
ruses; another, in St. Lawrence Bay, on the west side 
of the Straits, had killed about fifty eider ducks, of two 
species, Kmg and y-nigra. The whalers had done much 
trading with the Eskimo and had many skins. They had 
also provided themselves with crews of Eskimo and with 
dogs for their trip to the Arctic. Some of the whalers 
had come north only for a short season; others were to 
winter at Herschell Island in the Arctic. The Eskimo 
who were on board had their kayaks and their sledges 
with them. On one ship there were seventy-nine dogs. 
On the sand bar which forms the northern shore of 
Port Clarence there was a continuous camp of Eskimo 
stretched all along the curving beach for a mile or more. 
Many of them had just come in; some from Cape Prince 
of Wales; others from Cape Nome; others from St. 
Michaels. In many cases their baggage was not yet un- 
packed, but was piled up on the beach. Each camp had at 
least one large umiak, or skin traveling boat, and there 
were a few kayaks. 
The Eskimo here were well provided with food. They 
had some fresh salmon, many dried flatfish, and other fish 
which were not recognized. They had also plenty of 
dried seal meat and fresh walrus meat. At one of the 
camps I was invited to eat some of this last, and did so. 
It was rather tough and stringy, and had an after taste of 
rancid oil ; probably it had been killed a good while. 
They also had great quantities of a small, silvery fish, 3 or 
4 inches long, which looked like smelt, and which they 
catch in dip nets, made of sealskin line. The people were 
a fine looking lot; stout, strong and healthy. There was 
a number of good looking women and children, and all 
were quite clean. 
The dogs, of which there were many, were very wolf- 
like in appearance. All of them, even little pups not yet 
able to run well, were tied up by harness to pegs driven into 
the ground. They were not at all disposed to attack 
strangers, and only one or two barked at members of the 
party. In a number of cases the dogs were being fed on 
the small fish caught in dip nets. 
Many of the implements for hunting and fishing carried 
by these people were of ancient type, headed with bone 
or ivory. One fine bundle consisted of a harpoon, two 
seal spears and two spare handles. Stone tools were not 
common. A fine chisel of jadeite was seen, and two 
stone pipes. They make a few baskets of good form and 
quality, of the Point Barrow type. x\mong the imple- 
ments of the different camps wxre two or three adzes, 
each made from an ordinaiy steel hatchet lashed to a 
short handle, at right angles to the usual direction of the 
hatchet blade. Man\' complete seal.skins were seen here, 
used as trunks, parneches or possible sacks. They, were 
made from the skins of the ribbon, Pallas and comrnon 
hair seal. These, skinned out through the mouth, and 
with no other cut in them, and tied up at both ends, arc 
used for walrus floats, for oil casks, or, when completely 
dried and turned right side out, for trunks. When used 
for this last purix)se, a slit is often cut across the breast 
from flipper to flipper, for an opening, which is closed 
by a lacing. 
The Eskimo were all living in wall tents of canvas 
or muslin with low wall and door, so that to enter one 
has to creep in on hands and knees. There were a few 
oval frames, covered with canvas, and in one case a sheet 
of canvas was stretched over the top of an umiak turned 
up on its side. Behind several of the tents were sticks 
standing in the gravel, surmounted hj^ rudely carved 
figures. One of these was evidently a bear, %vhich had 
once been painted black; another represented a bird; an- 
other a man and a woman, standing on either side of 
what looked like a rifle target,- but very likely represented 
the sun; in fact, a man toid us that itns hgure was "aii 
same sun." These figures are undoubtedly sacred em- 
blems, and one of the party who wished to purchase 
one received a very short answer to his offer. 
The parkas of the men and women differ noticeably. 
The women have a long scallop hanging down in front and 
behind, while those worn by the men are of the same 
length all around. Here both sexes appear to wear tight 
trousers or leggings. All the men have the crovyn shaved. 
The women's hair hangs loose or is carelessly braided at 
either side. Many of the children are verjr pretty and 
clean. One woman was seen who spoke good English. 
She had been to San Francisco with Minor W. Bruce, who 
has charge of the United States reindeer herds. A station 
of these reindeer is only about eighteen miles back from 
Port Clarence. 
When the ship reached her anchorage, after watering, a 
number of umiaks came out to trade, and before long 
there were eight alongside the ship, holding in all more 
than 125 persons. The boats were yellow, the color of 
the dried skin, and were crowded with people, some clad 
in reindeer skins and some in red or blue cloth. The 
boats were heavily laden. Sealskin trunks lay in the 
bottom, mixed up' with deerskins, dogs and babies. The 
dogs and the babies w*ere the only impassive living things 
in the boats ; all the others were shouting, holding up 
hides, bits of carved ivory, mukluks or walrus teeth, and 
asking people to hwy. Much of what was offered vvas of 
small value or interest, though there were a few skins and 
bits of carved ivory that were worth having. 
" Alaska has a stringent law against the importation of 
spirits, which law is regarded by no one. Liquor has been 
supplied to the Aleuts and to the Indians for years, and 
ha-; helped to kill them off. It is now being suoplied to the 
Eskimo, and has begun its deadly work with them. It 
is chiefly taken to the Arctic by 'the whaVrs. In i8-^8, it 
is said, a whaler at Port Clarence carried fifteen barrels of 
alcohol, to te diluted one-half with water, for trade with 
FOREST AND STREAM, 
the Eskimo. Of course the natives do not care anything 
about the taste of the alcohol, but drink it for its effect. 
Ihey want to get drunk, and will trade anything that they 
have for liquor. The people on the Kider purchased 
several hundred dollars' worth of skins and curiosities 
from the Eskimo at Port Clarence, paying for these things 
chiefly in money. What became of that money may be 
inferred from a remark made to a member of the party 
by a sailor, who said: "The 'old man' will have all that 
money before night for liquor." 
It is said that m 1899 the whaling fleet at Port Clarence 
started with 400 barrels of Chinese alcohol for trade with 
the natives. This, if diluted one-half, would make 800 
barrels- — an inconceivable quantity when one considers the 
number of natives to be supplied. This alcohol came 
across the sea from some point on the coast of Asia, and 
was never landed south of Port Clarence ; in other words, 
it was smuggled into the country. It was intimated by 
individuals on board the whaling fleet that two or three of 
the whaling captains who did not believ^ in trading 
liquor to the natives intended when the revenue cutter 
came along to infonn against the vessels carrying the 
liquor, and to give evidence. Whether this was done is 
not known. But probably it was not. It is also reported 
that the Pacific Steam Whaling Company has given orders 
to its captains not to give liquor to the natives, but, of 
course, it is very doubtful how far such orders will be 
obeyed 
Here at Port Clarence one or two Eskimo were seen 
wearing a wolf or dog tail hanging down from the belt 
behind. This reminded one of the report made by Popoff, 
long a captive of the Tchukchis in Siberia, nearly 200 
years ago. when he told the Russians that he had heard 
that beyond the sea. to the east, there was a great land 
inhabited by people who had tusks growing out of their 
cheeks, and had tails like dogs. The old man seen at 
Plover Bay had labrets in his cheeks, which were these 
tusks, and here at Port Clarence were the men who had 
tails like dogs. C. B. G. 
Gens des^ Bois. 
VL— Martin Van Boren Moody. 
A GOOD lie, well told and plainly labeled for men of 
perception to read between the lines, has always been a 
popular form of humor with the American frontiersman. 
No one ever .succeeded better at this kind of fun than 
Mart Moody, of Tupper Lake, who gained distinction 
for inventing some of the most original and surprising 
hunting and fishing stories that were ever manufactured 
from the whole cloth for the edification of city people and 
the amusement of fellow woodsmen. 
The old settler still laughs at the mention of Uncle 
Mart's drowning a bear in his swill barrel or any other 
of the boss humorist's pet yarns, but Mart himself has 
come to be a litde shy of his jokes. The city man who 
wanted particulars about Mart at first hand and was 
told that he was "part hunter, part guide and the rest gen- 
eral good-for-nothing and scamp," did not always have 
KNCIvE MART AND AUNT MINERVA. 
Phdto .A.ug-. 10, 1894, by Mrs. W. W. Sn\ith. 
the wit to appreciate Mart at his true worth. In cities 
men always lie the other way. And when Mart told & 
whopper and then turned to his wife and asked. "Ain't- 
that so, MinerA'y?*" the outsiders did not always recognize 
the good-natured badinage. People who didn't know 
him took him too seriously, while some who did refused 
to take him sefiously at all, and so Mart has renounced his 
stories, and the other day, when I saw him after an inter- 
val of eight years, he could not be induced to tell of cata- 
mounts jumping off dizzy heights into frozen lakes and 
striking with such force that their tracks could be seen in 
the ice the next August, or aij.v other of the galaxy of the 
wonders of nature and animal life with which he used to 
delight hi.s auditors. 
"No," said Mart, "I'm not telling any more of those 
stories. It all started with Ed Derby, of Saranac, and 
Dr. Rosmond. of Brooklyn. First Ed w-ould tell some- 
thing remarkable, and then I'd try to go him one better, or 
else I'd get off some story and he'd cap it with a bigger 
yarn. Dr. Rormond was the go-between and instigator of 
the trouble" — and Mart switched the subject off onto the 
Boer war, showing at once a knowledge of Sou:h African 
conditions and a grasp of the military situation that was 
the clearest and most forceful exposition of the matter I 
had yet heard. 
Life History of a Woodsman. 
Martin Van Buren Moody is sixty-seven years old, 
having been born June 27, 183.^. He is a powerful man, 
standing 6 feet and 2 incb«»;,artd weighing 200 pounds, not 
an "imre of which i'^ cunerflnous adipose. 
His father, Jacob Smith Moody, was the first settler at 
Saranac Lake, on the E=sex county side, going there in 
i8ig and settling on a tract of land received iFor services in 
the war of 1812. 
428 
Martin lived at Saranac Lake until March, 1868, when 
he moved to the foot of Big Tupper J^aKe, entertaining 
sportsmen in summer and lumbering in winter. Jrle was 
already thoroughly acquainted with tne country, having 
visited it with his lather, who was an old trapper, when he 
was seven or eight years old, and having put in a 
good rnany months in the years from '46 to '60 camping 
m the immediate neighborhood. He had been one of the 
first guides ui the Saranac Lakes, and as a young man 
guided Capt. Collingwood, of the British Navy, a nephew 
of the Collingwood who commanded a sixty-four-gun 
battleship at irataigar. Since then Moody has guided 
many of the most noted American sportsmen, including 
two Presidents — Arthur and Cleveland. 
For twenty years he lived at the hotel which is now 
kept by the widow of Pliny Robbins, and for ten years 
more at Alexander's, and now has built a third house 
near by and settled down to keep post-office, and enjoy 
himself the rest of his life. There are onlv two in the 
family — Uncle Mart and Aunt Minerva. 
How the Pickerel Came to Tupper. 
When Hi Benham, the Saranac Lake guide, and I 
stopped at Moody's hostlery on a previous occasion, the 
pickerel had just gained a foothold in the Saranacs, and 
Uncle Mart, who had seen more of them in Tupper than 
he wanted, could not refrain from a joke at Hi's expense. 
The Saranac guides had been accustomed to look down 
on Tupper men because they had trout, while the pickerel 
had pretty effectually cleaned them out of Tupper Lake 
and they had by no means become reconciled to their new 
acquisition. 
"Shall I help you off with your coat, Hi?" asked Uncle 
Mart, nonchalantly, as Benham entered the dining room. 
"No," said the Saranacker, innocently. "Why do you 
want to help me off with my coat?" 
"Because," .said Uncle Mart, "I'm afraid you can't get 
it off yourself. The bones of those pickerel you've been 
eating over at Saranac must by this time be sticking out 
through your back." 
The pickerel came to Tupper Lake by way of Long 
Lake and the Raquette River. 
"Lysander Hall put them in Long Lake," says Moody. 
"He told me so himself. He went over to Lake Colden 
and got them., because he had been prosecuted for catching 
trout through the ice for a sick girl. He caught thirteen 
trout, and a neighbor who had a grudge informed on 
him and he was fined $65. It was Hall's way of getting 
even to finish up the trout fishing there forever. 
"The pickerel increased in Long Lake till they ate up 
all the food, and about '82 they came through in an 
army to Tupper Lake. From June 25 till August thev 
came in droves, and it wasn't anything remarkable for 
fishermen to catch a hundred pounds in a day. 
"They stayed in Tupper Lake until they ate up all the 
small fish, and then they started down the Raquette to 
the St. Lawrence. A man at the dam could see the 
pickerel going through the 12-foot slip so fast he couldn't 
begin to keep track of them. Now they are pretty well 
gone. 
"We have lake trout, bass and some brook trout, and 
the fishing in Tupper Lake is first-class now, particularly 
for the bass. C. F: Martin, of New York, put in thirty- 
eight black bass and twelve Oswego bass, and a good 
many have come down all the way from Raquette Lake. 
Now they catch two bass to one pickerel. I saw thirty- 
seven bass brought in to Alexander's one night Over 
2 pounds in weight, and fish have been caught weighing 
6 pounds," 
Theory of Hiberntffon. 
Moody's gam.e record comprises seventeen wolves, fifty- 
seven bears shot out of traps, including seven bears in six 
days; 1,500 deer and five catamounts. His theory of 
hibernation in bears is that the condition depends on the 
temperature of the air, and that cold weather produces 
torpidity by its physical action on the lungs, "kind of 
paralyzes them," while a higher temperature" at any time 
"creates breath and starts the air in the lungs." 
"I have seen," says Moody, where a hear came out of 
its den and walked around a little on three thaws in a 
winter, and went back after each and hibernated same as 
before. There was a good deal of di-charge about the 
place when I found it, after the bear had left for good and 
all, mostly- bark and leaves and hair." 
Trapped Man and Catamount. 
Moody, when a young man, once went on a fishing ex- 
cursion by boat from the foot of Lower Saranac Lake to 
Palmer Meadows on Ray Brook. With him were two of 
Daniel Ames' boys, Edward and Moses. 
Reaching the lower falls they decided to fish Rogers' 
Brook. They ran up it as far as they could go with a 
boat, and took to the bank and began fishing. 
Shortly after Mart met with an extremely unpleasant ad- 
venture. In stepping over a fallen log he' put his foot in 
a concealed steel trap, which instantly pinned him fast, 
and it was not till the two boys had been summoned and a 
lever cut that he was released from his painful predica- 
m.ent. On getting out of the trap Mart hobbled toward 
the brook and was engaged in binding up his foot, when 
his nen-es received a second shock. He heard one of the 
boys scream, ''A catamount." and looking around saw a 
large panther crouching on a log. 
Mart's first thought was for his companions, and he 
sent them across a fallen tree to the other side of the 
brook. Then, pulling on his shoe, he made his way to 
the boat, and securing his gun, which he had left there, 
ha=tily returned. 
The panther was still on the log. and a careful shot laid 
him low, and then Mart had his third surprise of the day, 
for the. panther was securely caught in a steel trap, the 
mate of the one he had steoped into a moment before, and 
was hy no means the daneerous foe he had thought. 
Traps and dogs are re'^non'^ible for the extennination of 
the panthers in the .Adirondacks. There may be a stray 
specimen left somewhere in the woods, but none has 
been killed of recent years. 
Robbed the Wolves of Their Game. 
In the fall of t86o Mart Moody. Elbridge G. Titus. Wm. 
Johnson and Bill Moody hunted near ♦be head of the 
Upper Saranac. and w^re nicces'^fiil in killing a number of 
deer. The 20th of December Mart's brother, Harvey, 
came in with a sleigh to draw out their game across the 
