SUMMER COMES
As the days grew longer, late in winter, Papik and Milak played outdoors more and more. Then one day when Papik climbed on top of the snow house, the roof suddenly caved in! Summer had come. Papik wasn't really surprised. Summer in the Arctic always came in a sudden burst. There was no gradually warming spring.
Nobody scolded Papik for breaking the house. Instead, his family moved into a deerskin tent on the land, where they would live all summer. Dozens and dozens of different kinds of brilliantly colored flowers bloomed in no time. Clouds of mosquitoes appeared and made life uncomfortable for people and dogs. The ocean ice broke up with great cracking noises.
At first the earth was swampy and the Eskimos sometimes starved because they couldn't hunt. As the ground dried out the dogs carried small packs on their backs. The Eskimos had to walk and carry big loads on their own backs, hung from straps around their foreheads.
caribou
As soon as the ice had opened up in the sea and streams and lakes, the Eskimos could travel on water, too. The whole family sometimes got into an umiak—a big boat made of skins. A man or boy could go out in a little skin boat called a kayak.
There was much work to do during the hot days—and plenty of daylight in which to do it. The nights grew shorter, until there was no night at all. The huge sun hung in the sky and never went down. Nobody in the village slept much. Even the children went without any sleep at all for two or three days at a time!
Papik and his father hunted for deer. They used bows shaped from deer antlers and strengthened with deer sinews that had been glued to the horn. Their arrows had points of flint or walrus ivory.
In summer, whales and walruses swam back from warmer water into the Arctic Ocean. To catch them, an Eskimo hunter used a big harpoon. Sometimes he could harpoon a whale from land or from big cakes of ice near land. Often several men went hunting together in an umiak, which had oars and a sail made of seal intestines sewed together. The boat was so light that two men could lift it, but so strong that it could hold two or three tons of whale meat.
Papik hunted these big animals with bow and arrows.
The umiak towed the whale to shore.
Each hunter had his harpoon and line. Tied to the line was a watertight sealskin blown up like a balloon. This was called a float. After the hunters harpooned a whale, the animal tried to swim away, but the floats dragged in the water and finally tired it out. Then it was easy for a man to send a spear straight into the whale's huge heart and kill it.
a sealskin float
The whale belonged to the whole village. All the women helped cut it up. And everybody agreed that the best food in the world was the whale's skin and the blubber under it. They cut this off in strips and ate some raw while it was fresh. Then they cut the rest of the whale up and stored it under rocks so that the dogs couldn't get at it.
a drum
After a lucky whaling trip, the villagers naturally wanted to celebrate. So they had a feast. A man beat a big flat drum made of deerskin or sealskin stretched tight over a hoop of wood or bone. People danced and sang songs they made up as they went along. And everybody ate and ate and ate.
In the evening they played catch with a light ball made of skin stuffed with moss. Or they whipped a heavier, clay-stuffed ball around the village with the long whips they used for their dog teams.
a fancy ball
There were other games at feasts, too. The men had archery contests with bows and arrows. When a man hit the target, the women showed their approval by running up and rubbing noses with him.
If a strange man came, there was usually a boxing match between him and one of the village men. If the stranger lost, he might have to go away. Life was so hard that only strong people were wanted in an Eskimo village.
Papik practiced these games, just as he practiced hunting. Before long he would be a man and would do the things a man did. There would be a feast when people agreed he was grown up. By then he could take care of himself, even if he was far from any village, all alone in the winter snow.
Eskimos Made Wonderful Inventions
This is how Eskimos hunted little birds with darts. Each dart had several points.
a throwing board and dart
a bow drill for making fire
Eskimos invented ways of killing whales, the largest animals in the world, with only a few pieces of wood and bone and hide. They invented ways of hunting powerful polar bears with only small handmade weapons. They invented a new kind of lamp, which was perfect for their needs. They made the coldness of the Arctic work for them, when they turned ice and snow into useful tools. They could even make their food do double duty—sometimes they built sleds of frozen skins and meat or fish. Later they and their dogs could have a feast of the thawed-out meat.
Eskimos invented snow goggles to protect their eyes from the glare of sunlight on snow.
Eskimos used every part of an animal. What they didn't eat they turned into clothes or tools or building materials. They even made fine thread from the fibers in bird feathers. All around these two pages you'll find inventions that helped Eskimos to live in the Arctic.
Eskimos invented little skin shoes to protect their dogs' feet when they had to travel over sharp ice.
Eskimos often hung skin linings inside snow houses. This kept the snow from melting and made the house much warmer.
Eskimos fastened waterproof jackets tight to their kayaks. They could turn over in the water without getting anything but their faces and hands wet.
polar bear
white whale