Our Arctic province

by Henry Wood Elliott

The only ingress or egress is afforded by a small, low, irregularly shaped aperture (it cannot rightfully be called a door), through which the natives stoop and enter, passing down a foot or two through a short, depressed passage that is created by the thickness of the walls to the hut; the floor is hard-tramped earth, and the ground-plan of it a rude circle, or square, twelve, fifteen, or twenty feet in diameter, as the case may be, and in which the only light of day comes feebly in from a small smoke-opening at the apex of the roof, the ceiling of which rises tent-like from the floor. A faint, smouldering fire is always made directly in the centre, and the atmosphere of the apartment is invariably thick and surcharged with its combustion.

Hard and rude are the beds of the Innuit—a clumsy shelf of poles is slightly elevated above the earth, and placed close against the walls; upon this staging the skins of bears and reindeer, seals, and even walrus-hides, together with mats of plaited sedge and bark, are laid; sometimes these bedsteads are mere platforms of sod and peat. If the hut stands in a situation where it is exposed to the full force of boisterous storms, then the architect builds a rough hallway of earth and sods, with a bulging expansion, whereby room is given in which to shelter his dogs and keep many utensils and traps under cover. He also, in warm weather, lives outside of this winter hut, to a great degree, when at home; and, for that purpose, he builds a summer cook-house, or kitchen, which resembles the igloo itself, only it is not more than five or six feet square, and no higher than a stooping posture within warrants. This is also a great resort for his dogs, which renders the place very offensive to us.

The summer houses are erected above ground, and are generally slight pole frames, roofed with skins and open in front; fire is rarely made in them, and therefore they have no opening in the roof, all cooking being done in the open air during fine weather. They seldom have flooring, but otherwise the interior arrangements resemble those of the winter houses. The store-houses of all our Eskimo tribes are set on posts at a height of from eight to ten feet above the ground, to protect them from foxes, wolves, and dogs. They have generally a small square opening in front that can be closed with a sliding board, and which is reached by means of a notched stick of wood. These boxes are seldom more than eight feet square by three or four feet in height.

The routine of life which these natives of the Nooshagak and Kuskokvim valleys and streams follow is one of much activity—they are on the tramp or are paddling up and down the rivers pretty much all of the time. A year is divided up by them about as follows: In February they prepare to go to the mountains, and go then most of them do, though some will be as late as April in getting away on account of their children, or of sheer laziness. They move with the entire family outfit, bag and baggage, dogs, sleds, and boats. They settle down along by the small mountain streams, trap martens, shoot deer, and dig out beaver. February and March are the best months for marten, April and May for the beaver, bear, and land-otter.

By June 10th they return to their winter villages and visit the trading-posts. They then begin their preparations for salmon-fishing, getting their traps into shape so as to be used effectively when those fish begin to run. They air-dry salmon on frames, and put the heads in holes and allow them to rot slightly before eating; also the spawn, which, however, is preserved in oil, and used as a great delicacy during their own festivals in the midwinter season. The salmon-fishing is all over about July 20th. By August 10th these nomads return to the mountains, leaving the old women and youngest children with their mothers in charge of the caches at the villages. This time they go for reindeer, which have just shed their hair and are in the full beauty of new, fine, sleek coats. They hunt these animals from that time until the middle of September, when the fur of the beaver is again in prime condition; then Castor canadensis receives their undivided attention. They catch these giant rodents in wooden “dead-falls,” and also by breaking open the dams, which causes the water to suddenly leave the beavers fully exposed to the spears of their savage human enemies.

When the first snow flies in October they rig up rude deer-skin boats, like the “bull-boats” on the Missouri, and float all their traps and rude equipage down the river back from whence they started. They all return for the winter by the middle of October; then, without going far from the vicinity of their settlements, they renew and set up fresh dead-fall traps for marten—they never go any distance from home for this little animal, and when ice forms on the rivers, about the end of October or early in November, they put their white-fish traps under it. The marten-trapping is abandoned in December, because the intense, stormy, and cold weather then drives these pine-weasels into winter holes, where they remain semi-dormant until the end or middle of February. During this period of severe wintry weather the Innuit gives himself up to unrestrained loafing and vigorous dancing festivals, which last until the year is again renewed by going out to the mountains in February.

These natives of the Nooshagak and Kuskokvim regions have a large and varied natural food-supply. They have reindeer-meat, the flesh of moose, of bears, and of all the smaller fur-bearing animals found in this territory—the list is a full one, comprising land-otters, cross, red, and black foxes, the mink, the marten, the marmot, and the ground-squirrel, or “yeavrashka,” which last is the most abundant. The bears are all brown in this country—no black ones. They also secure large gray and white wolves, while those who live right on the coast of Bering Sea get walrus, the big “mahklok” seal, and a little harbor phoca, or “nearhpah.”

They have a great abundance of water-fowl, such as geese, ducks, and the small waders, and they occasionally kill a beluga, or white grampus, and at still more rare intervals they find a stranded whale, which is set upon and eaten. They save carefully all the oil which comes from marine mammals; they treasure it up in seal-skin bags that are placed high up above the reach of dogs and foxes on a frame scaffold which adjoins every hut. Fish-oil is also secured in the same manner; it answers a threefold purpose—it serves for food, for fuel, and for light, and it is a luxurious skin and hair dressing for them all, old and young.

Fish they capture in the greatest abundance, and the variety is quite fair. Salmon is the staff, and is found in all of the thousand and one lakes and sluggish or rapid streams that run from them into the greater rivers, where a mighty rush of the same fish is annually made up in June and July from Bering Sea. In all of the deeper lakes, and the big rivers, a variety of large white-fish and trout are found, especially prized and searched for by these people in midwinter, when they are trapped there in wicker-work baskets and pole weirs under ice.