A Small Team and a Heavy Load.
When an Eskimo leaves a snow-house, his household goods are removed by breaking a hole in the side of the wall. They are then loaded on the sled, and retained by cross-lashings of sealskin passed from side to side, where they are secured in the niches of the cross-bars.
When the ice has frozen several miles out from the shore many of the seals remain in the shallow waters of the bays and sounds. In order to do this they are compelled to keep holes open so that they may breathe from time to time. They form these holes either by enlarging natural cracks or, when such do not occur, by scraping with their front flippers a conical hole big enough to admit their body and with a few inches to spare at the surface. As the time approaches to bring forth her young, the female enlarges a hole, usually in rough ice where the snow is deeply drifted, and there clears away the snow about the hole, forming a flat-domed house sufficiently large to accommodate herself and her young. The pups are born in March and April. A seal does not necessarily confine itself to one or more breathing holes of its own, but uses those of other seals, so that the chances of killing a seal at any particular hole varies. The Eskimo now forsakes the edge of the floe and hunts his seals at these holes. In order to find the holes he employs his keenest scented dog, harnessed, who soon smells a hole and rushes to it dragging his master with him. If the hole appears well frequented, and the Eskimo is anxious to obtain a seal, he takes the dog some distance away and ties him securely by his trace to the ice. He then returns to the hole, and clears the snow from about its opening, replacing it with a fresh thin slab, on which the centre of the hole is plainly marked. If he intends to remain until a seal comes, he often erects a low wall of snow to windward, and sometimes places a block close to the hole as a seat. A piece of deer or bear skin is put down to stand on; he then ties a thong around his legs at the knees so that they may make no noise by striking together when shivering with the cold. All preparations being complete, he stands or sits absolutely motionless for hours until a seal comes to the hole to breathe. The slightest movement or noise made as the seal approaches raises suspicion and the animal goes elsewhere. The near approach is heralded by strings of bubbles formed by the animal emptying its lungs as it rises to the hole. When its nostrils are above the water and it begins a series of long inspirations, the Eskimo noiselessly brings his spear directly over the centre of the hole, and strikes down with his full strength, hoping to drive the barb into the brain and immediately kill the seal. This often happens with small ones, but with the large ground-seal a single blow rarely kills it, and a struggle between man and victim then takes place. The winter seal spear is from five to six feet long. It consists of four parts, the barb, the iron rod on which the head fits, the wooden shaft and the iron ice-chisel at the end opposite to the spear. The head or barb is now almost always made of iron, the ancient ones being of stone, or iron and ivory. It is about three inches long, and quite narrow in proportion to the length; the point is formed into a slender barbed spear, with a small hole at its base which fits the iron rod of the handle. Near the centre is another hole, at right angles to the length, to which is attached several fathoms of seal line. The rod of the shaft is from fifteen to thirty inches long, and is usually made from three-eighths or half-inch iron or steel. At the upper end it is pointed to fit the hole in the base of the spearhead; at the lower end it is securely fastened to the wooden handle by being driven into it to the depth of three or four inches, and the end of the wood is strongly bound with sinew. The wooden handle forms the middle portion of the spear; it is usually about two feet long, and of sufficient circumference to afford a strong and convenient grasp. A small peg of ivory projects about half an inch from the side of the wooden handle, and over this peg a small loop attached to the spear line is passed. This keeps the line taut, and holds the head securely in place on the end of the rod. When a seal is struck the loop slips from the peg and the spearhead is detached from the handle. In striking a seal, the handle is held in the right hand and the line in a coil in the left. Immediately the animal is struck the hunter lays down the handle and devotes himself to the line. If the seal is a large one and struggles much, a turn of the line is taken around the waist, and the hunter braces himself for an encounter, in which the seal is sometimes the victor. Great care is necessary in paying out the line, for many a finger has been lost by becoming entangled in a loop. The violently struggling seal must soon breathe, and to do so is compelled to rise in the hole; then the hunter endeavours to drive the pointed rod into its brain, and usually does so very quickly. The hole is then enlarged with the ice-chisel on the end of the spear handle. The chisel is commonly made of half-inch square iron or steel firmly sunk into the wooden shaft and fined down to a long chisel-edge. When the seal has been hauled on the ice a number of ceremonies are gone through in order to propitiate its spirit and to please the goddess of the marine animals. One of the customs consists in bursting the eyes so that the seal’s spirit may not see that it is being taken to the snow-house. Of course these customs are falling into disuse among the Christianized Eskimos of Labrador and Cumberland gulf, but there remains, even among the most enlightened, a strong leaven of their ancient superstitions and customs.
Interior of Snowhouse at Fullerton.
At every stopping place traps are set for foxes. The trap is usually a single-spring steel one, of which each native usually has two or three. The traps are set on the snow and covered with a thin sheet of hard snow, the bait being hidden alongside. Where steel traps are not available, long narrow boxes of stone or ice are constructed, with the bait in the back part, and attached to a dead fall, so that when it is disturbed, the door falls upon the fox. The Arctic fox is generally plentiful in the early winter months, when many of them travel southward along the coast.
The months of January and February are passed by the Eskimos on the journey to the trading post, where a short stay of a few days is made to dry the fox-skins caught during the winter, and to trade these along with deer and other skins in the shop. There is no cash used in these transactions; the skins are handed over to the trader, who values them from a standard of a white fox skin. When the amount has been made up, he hands to the native a number of tokens representing the value of his hunt in fox-skins. The usual tariff is about as follows:—
| White fox = 1 skin. | Mink = 1 skin. |
| Blue fox = 2 skins. | Marten = 2 skins. |
| Cross fox = 5 to 15 skins. | White bear = 4 to 10 skins. |
| Silver fox = 15 to 40 skins. | Deerskin = ½ skin. |
| Otter = 4 to 8 skins. |
The Eskimo trades back, over the counter, the tokens received for his hunt. The first purchase is a supply of tobacco; next comes ammunition, and then follow tools, cheap clothing, needles, tin kettles, knives, files, &c., until his stock of tokens is used up. The immediate profit on the goods supplied is very great, but when the cost of transport and the maintenance of the post are taken into account the profit, which appears enormous at first, is found to be not excessive, considering the precarious nature of the fur trade, with its fluctuating market and the chances against good hunts.
The trading completed, the natives collect in large bands on the ice, usually in the vicinity of some long crack or other place where seals are abundant, and spend the next month going from encampment to encampment visiting friends and exchanging the news. With the first signs of mild weather a start is made northward. Life now is very pleasant; the days are long and becoming mild; seals are killed in large numbers on the ice, as they lie basking and sleeping in the warm sun. A good deal of patience and some excellent mimicry is displayed in killing seals at this time. When one is seen lying near its hole, the native approaches as near as possible, say within 500 yards, when he lies down and crawls and wriggles the remainder of the distance. During this operation great care is taken not to excite the animal’s suspicion, and an advance is only made when the seal’s head is down. A seal appears to sleep in short naps, and raises his head every few minutes; when he does so the hunter immediately hides his face, and with his arms and legs imitates the motions of a seal scratching or lazily rolling, at the same time mimicking the blowing and other noises made by the seals; by so doing he soon lulls suspicion, and is enabled to crawl a little closer. By advancing in this manner he can get within fifty yards of his prey, when he shoots it. When the native has no gun, he continues to close in until sufficiently near to kill with his lance; this must, however, be done quickly, for the seal displays wonderful agility in falling into the water when disturbed.