Art Shoots Ducks Among the Icebergs from the Dory with the Johnson Engine.
The next day some of us took the Governor back to Upernivik in our launch. Doctor Heinbecker and I stayed there, visiting Dr. Rasmussen, the woman doctor who lives there and visits all around at the little settlements. She makes these trips in her own little power boat, with a couple of Eskimos to run it for her. She is a Dane, and most awfully nice. She is very big and strong, and they tell grand stories about how she drives her dog team in the winter and can tire out men who try to keep up to her. All the time we were at Upernivik she let us sleep in comfortable beds in her little hospital, and in every way treated [[91]]us splendidly. While visiting there we had some interesting things to eat, like seal meat, auks, duck and ducks’ eggs.
That afternoon Dr. Rasmussen got a message that someone was sick in a little village called Augpilagtok, only a few miles from where the Morrissey was. The others returned to the Morrissey and Doc and I went with the Lady Doctor to this village, asking that they send over there to get us. We went in her little boat which was built in Denmark. It is very sturdy and good in the ice, ploughing along just as if there was no ice at all.
Dad Tries His Hand at Netting Dovekies.
In Augpilagtok there was a tiny store in a little room joined to the house of the head man. His name was Imik and later he went with Dad on a three days trip, to the glaciers and the ice cap. In the store they sold lead for the bullets which they made in crude moulds, and also caps and powder. Their rifles shoot both shotgun shells and rifle bullets, and they make all the ammunition themselves. [[92]]Here the Eskimos have money which they use in the store to buy biscuit, sugar, tobacco and other things. These are weighed out on funny little scales the weights of which were two old brass hinges.
After a while our launch came with Dad and some of the others and we all went back to the Morrissey, through lots of ice. Most of the way the Lady Doctor’s boat, the Mitik, which is very broad in the beam, ploughed through the ice in front, with our launch trailing along behind.
When we arrived at the Morrissey the Captain wanted to get rid of some of us, to make things easier for Billy, the cook, who had the big bunch of Eskimos on his hands. Also, they were moving ballast and getting ready to put the vessel over on her side which would mean putting out the fires and having everyone camp on shore. The Lady Doctor invited our Doc, Harry Raven and myself to go to town with her, which we did. [[93]]
We went back to Upernivik in the Lady Doctor’s boat, reaching there about four o’clock in the morning—broad daylight, of course, and with the sun shining brightly, for all this time we were very lucky to have fine weather and really quite warm. I suppose the temperature was about sixty at the warmest and never got below forty.