Upernivik is a nice little place built on an island. Where we landed there was only a little wharf and some store houses and supplies. From this harbor a little path or trail led over a steep hill to the real town, which was down on the other side on a slope to the south, with a grand view of Sanderson’s Hope, quite a big mountain a few miles away and overlooking an open fjord which was no use as a harbor. The village has a dozen wooden houses, including several that are very nice indeed, chiefly the Governor’s house and one [[51]]for the doctor who lives there, which also is used for a hospital. And about the wooden houses are the sod huts of the natives, most of whom seem to stick to their own style of living. There is a fine new church on the hill just over the village.
We had lunch with Governor Otto and his daughter Ruth, a girl about twelve years old, at his house, and afterward in the harbor we took some movies of an Eskimo turning over in his kayak. He didn’t seem to have a hard time at all. He just kind of fell over on one side, sitting right in his kayak or skin boat, and then came up on the other side with just a twist of his paddle. Doing this he wore a watertight suit of sealskin and a hood over his head, drawn tight about the neck. And around his waist, where he sat in the hole or cockpit of the kayak, there was a skin fastened tight about him so that no water could get in.
Robert Peary thought he would try it so [[52]]he changed into a sealskin shirt, got into the Eskimo’s kayak—it was hard for him to squeeze in he was so much larger than the Eskimo—and turned half way over. The kayak was upside down and then his head stuck up on the other side and went down again, sputtering. He just couldn’t manage to get up again, and hung head down in the water, the boat upside down right over him. I really thought he was drowning.
Robert Peary Tries a Kayak.
Then he came up a second time and yelled for help. Of course we were close to him and right away Carl got there in a rowboat and he pretty nearly fell in himself helping to get Robert straightened up. And you should have seen the Eskimos laugh! They thought it was a great joke. But Robert seemed to feel he had swallowed about all the ice water of Baffin Bay that he wanted and he was so cold he went back to the ship and changed his clothes. But I’ll bet that next summer at home in Maine he learns the trick. [[53]]
We had sent some natives out to catch sharks for specimens and Doc, Ralph and myself went after them in the launch. They had caught four big ones and had lost another overboard. These Greenland basking shark, as they are called, are very slow and sluggish. They don’t fight at all. They move very slowly and don’t seem to be savage or a bit like the sharks I have seen caught in Florida.
The next morning Governor Otto took us over to see his dogs, which during the summer he keeps on a bare rocky island about a mile away, where they are entirely to themselves. About every three days during the summer they are fed, mostly ducks which are taken out in a big basket. Most of them seem to have been kept a pretty long time and become pretty “ripe.” But the dogs certainly like them.
Art Young Tries an Eider Duck Egg from the Eskimo Cache on the Duck Islands.