412 
skiii-covei-ed l)()at j)r()pelled by oars, conij^aiable with the Eskimo 
iirniak,^ but very few could have invented so wonderful a hunting 
craft as the light and speedy kayak.^ The dog-sled, which is superior 
to the Indian toboggan for travelling over the hard-packed snow of 
the Arctic and sub-Arctic coasts, was another invention of the 
Eskimo; and they developed the dog as a traction animal far more 
than any Indian tribe. Remembering their isolation and the meagre 
resources that nature supplied to them, it is hard to see what improve- 
ments were really possible on the sled for winter travel, the kayak 
for hunting and ci‘ossing small lakes and rivers, and the umiak for 
skirting the seacoast, except the use of a sail on the umiak: and 
even that was perhaps known to the Greenland Eskimo. - 
I^et us turn now to their dwellings. The universal dwelling 
in summer was a tent of seal or cai’ibou-skin, ridged in the eastern 
Arctic and conical in the western, the two types overlapping from 
the central region westward. The Aiackcnzie River Eskimo, and 
some of their kinsmen in Alaska, strengtliened the frame of the 
conical tent witli a hoop that was laslied to tlie poles about b feet 
from the ground. There was, also, a third type of tent, the round 
or cu])ola tyj>e, which the inland Eskimo of Alaska adopted from 
the neighbouring Kutchin. Winter dwellings were equally varied, 
owing partly to environmental conditions. Where driftwood was 
])lentiful, as in most of Alaska and in the della of the Mackenzie, 
the Piskimo built rectangular, semi-subterranean, turf-covered houses 
of logs’^ that had long underground jiassageways and entrances in 
the door.-* 
Typical of tlie Canadian Eskimo was the domed snow-hut. 
which seems to have been unknown in Alaska, and employed by the 
Mackenzie Delta natives, and by tlie natives of Greenland, only 
when travelling. The Greenland Piskimo lived in large log houses 
constructed on a different plan from the Alaskan ones, iiossibly 
througli the inffuence of the early Norsemen.’’ P^inallv. on the Green- 
1 Fur Ijriof (Ii‘srTi|>tiiiii.s nf tlicsi' r'rnft S<'( p. lOfI f. 
2(7/. Birk<!t-Siiiit)i. K:ij.: “Thu Et hiiocrapliv fif fhu Eiipdcstuiiutu 
land, vol. Ixvi, p. 2.i8 f. It surm.s not iinlik 
nse of .'iails from (he Xoiscmi'ti. f<n‘ Malliias^pii 
Distriut’’ ; Me'ddulciser 
(iroii- 
y, liowi'ViM', lliiil tliu (tifunland Esicimo Icnnied 1 lit* 
s ion of a tliirtputilli (?) t-rnturj’ Eskimo ffuttlf- 
Miil hia.ssun. T. 
(Oftoliur, 1030) 
ment nrar T’i’'-rnivik shou’.s that the Norsemen iiinueneed them slightly in other wavs. 
"An Old E.skimo Culture in West Greenland”; Geog. Rev., vol. xx, No. 4, p. 605 ff 
3 Bones of the whah' were snlistitated in disfriels \\hi‘re wood w.as searee. 
t The Maekem'.ic Della Eskimo sometimes h.iilt their Imt in the form of a cross .so that it etmld 
hoiLse three families. 
5 Cf. Birket -Smil !i ; 
" 'fhe Carilif)!! Eskimos,” 
^■ol. 2, I'l. 47. 
