DOGS AND HUNTING 
past experience with these customers had 
taught us that nothing in the way of food was 
safe from the attack of Esquimo dogs. I 
have seen tin boxes that had been chewed open 
by dogs in order to get at the contents, tin 
cans of condensed milk being gnawed like a 
bone, and skin clothing being chewed up like 
so much gravy. Dog fights were hourly oc- 
currences, and we lost a great many by the 
ravages of the mysterious Arctic disease, 
piblokto, which affects all dog life and fre- 
quently human Ufe. Indeed, it looked for a 
time as if we should lose the whole pack, so 
rapidly did they die, but constant care and at- 
tention permitted us to save most of them, and 
the fittest survived. 
Next to the Esquimos, the dogs are the most 
interesting subjects in the Arctic regions, and 
I could tell lots of tales to prove their intelli- 
gence and sagacity. These animals, more 
wolf than dog, have associated themselves with 
the human beings of this country as have their 
kin in more congenial places of the earth. 
Wide head, sharp nose, and pointed ears, 
thick wiry hair, and, in some of the males, a 
heavy mane; thick bushy tail, curved up over 
44 
