244 
We come now to our final route — across lierin^ 2 ; strait. Con- 
cerning its feasibility there is happily no doubt, since it is followed 
even to-day by the natives of both continents. The writer saw two 
open skin boats (uunaks) cross over to America in the summer of 
1926, one manned by Eskimo from East cape, the nearest point of 
Siberia to Alaska, the other by Chukchees fi’om a village some fifty 
miles to the northwest.^ A hundred years ago there was a well- 
on Iht'ir way to Alaska. (l‘hoto hi/ />. 
defined trading route that commenced at Anatlyr, the Russian mart 
near Bering sea, crossed Bering strait to Kotzebue sound, then con- 
tinued overland to the mouth of the Colville river and eastward to 
the delta of the Mackenzie. Identical remains in ancient house 
ruins on both sides of the strait attest to a similar movement back- 
wards and forwards several centuries before any Europeans had pene- 
trated to northeastern Siberia, and what was possible for primitive 
man seven or eight centuries ago was surely possible thousands of 
years earlier, seeing that the coast-line has changed but little since 
Pleistocene times. Indeed, we have evidence that at least one migra- 
tion did occur several thousand years ago. either by this route, or, 
less probably, by way of Kamschatka and tlie Aleutian islands; for 
1 The ilistance aero.s.s tlie strait is only fifty miles, aial the limd nn both sides is hinh enouiih 
for each continent to be visible from tlie otiier on a clear day. Natives crossing today generally spend 
a night at one or otlier of the two island.s, Big and Little Oiornede, that are .situated exactly in tlie 
middle of the strait. 
