10 
MUSEUM BULLETIN NO. 6. 
sound and elsewhere, and began their eastward progress by one 
of two routes — along the coast by Point Hope or overland north- 
east by the Colville route. There were also winter journeys 
of less commercial importance from the Bering coast in the 
vicinity of Kotzebue sound, to the Arctic coast west of Point 
Barrow. 
The main eastward exports of the Bering communities were 
Siberian goods, beads of native stone, stone and ivory ornaments, 
and (to the inland tribes) blubber and oil. They received in 
exchange caribou skins, wolverine and wolf sldns (for trimming 
their clothing), stone lamps, and stone pots. 
At Niflik in the Colville delta, the Barrow people sold 
Siberian wares, Bering coast ornaments, articles of ivory 
(mammoth and walrus — the mammoth chiefly found along their 
own rivers, the walrus purchased from the west), whale oil, 
whale skin, umiaks of bearded seal, walrus or white whale 
skin, kayaks of sealskin, sealskin waterboots, unworked seal- 
skins and the skin of the bearded seal for boot sole material. 
What they chiefly received for all this was caribou skins, with 
a few wolf and wolverine skins and, in later times, commercial 
furs — fox, lynx, etc. Proceeding east to Barter island or its 
vicinity, they traded all the same kinds of articles except oil, 
whale skin, boats, and sealskin articles. What they chiefly 
received were stone lamps and stone pots from the Mackenzie 
people, wolf and wolverine skins and (latterly) other furs from 
the Mackenzie people and the Indians from south of the moun- 
tains towards the Yukon. Both the Barrow people and those 
of Mackenzie river brought white whale skins to sell, though 
the Barrow traders probab ly never had as many of these as the 
easterners. The purchasers must have been the Athabaskan 
Indians from the south and those Colville people who had come 
to Barter island with Siberian and Bering Straits wares. 
It may be inferred that the farther east the trading place 
was located the fewer Siberian and other far western wares were 
brought to it. Dr. Richardson, if memory serves, states that, 
in 1846, Siberian wares were not seen by him east of Point Atkin- 
son — they had not reached Cape Bathurst. Richardson had, 
however, but limited opportunities for observation. Probably 
