CHAPTER IV
ALONG THE GREENLAND COAST
We hit bad weather going north to Disko and had to go in for shelter behind some small islands about forty miles from Holsteinsborg. There were no people there. We caught a few fish and shot some birds for specimens.
On one island there were three deserted sod huts. They were all muddy and full of fish and seal bones.
When we came back from the huts I went fishing with two of my friends, Jim and Ralph. We went away outside in the dory where it was quite rough—at least I thought so. We caught a few rock cod. Jim had a great big halibut right alongside but the fish gave a [[39]]flip as he was trying to land him and got free from the hook just as he was hauling him over the gunwale.
One night when some Eskimos came on board along the coast we showed them movies of Eskimos harpooning walrus to see how it would strike them. These movies were given in our little mid-ships cabin, where we eat and most of us sleep, with our Pathex projector thrown on a small screen Fred made from the table oilcloth.
When the harpooned walrus pulled the Eskimo hunter, our guests shouted and grunted. It was very funny. They had heard of movies but had never seen any. After the northern pictures we showed some from the South Sea islands. The Eskimos had never seen people in swimming so they didn’t know quite what to make of it. When they were asked by a friend of ours who speaks Eskimo what they thought of it, they only said that they liked them all very much, [[40]]especially a picture showing lions playing with an animal trainer. They had never seen any animal like a lion. There isn’t a cat, for instance, in all Greenland, we were told.
It is great fun to see the boats come out and meet you and the Eskimos that are entirely different from us and can’t speak a word of English except for words like shirts or sugar or coffee that they have heard. For such things as these they want to trade boots and purses and skins. And in the south they make little kayaks and knives and pen holders and such things out of the ivory of walrus tusks.
They have some very nice hats made of fur and eiderdown. One man brought two little toy kayaks up to me with all the equipment on them, even the little rack to hold the harpooning line, with a tiny model of a man sitting in the kayak. I got one of these for my little museum at home. For this one he wanted an old pair of pants, or some tobacco. [[41]]Even the women want chewing tobacco. I got some very pretty purses made of seal flippers, with bone latches. It is hard to find trinkets for all of one’s friends at home.