Across the sub-Arctics of Canada

by J. W. Tyrrell

The komitick is a sled of rather peculiar design, consisting simply of two parallel runners, twelve or fourteen feet long, built of wood and placed about eighteen inches apart, upon the top of which are lashed a number of cross bars or slats. The runners are shod either with ivory or with mud, the latter answering the purpose exceedingly well. The mud covering is, of course, put on in a soft state, when it can be easily worked and formed into proper shape. When the mud is on, and the surface nicely smoothed off, it is allowed to freeze, and speedily becomes as hard as stone. In order to complete the vehicle, and put it in good running order, there is one thing to be done. The shoeing, whether of mud or ivory, must be covered with a thin coating of ice, in order to do which the Eskimo overturns the komitick, fills his spacious mouth with water from some convenient source, and then from his lips deposits a fine stream along the runner, where, quietly freezing, it forms a smooth glassy surface.

During the winter season the komitick forms an important factor in the Eskimo’s life. It is drawn by a team, not of horses, nor even reindeer, but of dogs. The number of animals forming a team varies greatly, sometimes consisting of not more than three good dogs, but at other times fifteen or more are attached to a single sled. Each dog is attached by a single line, the length of which varies according to the merits of its owner. Thus the best dog in the team acts as leader, and has a line twenty or twenty-five feet in length.

In order to control the team the driver carries a whip of somewhat startling dimensions. This instrument of torture has a short wooden handle only about eighteen inches long, but what is lacking in stock is more than made up in lash, for this latter, made of the hide of the square flipper seal, is nearly thirty feet in length. An Eskimo can handle his whip with great dexterity, being able not only to reach any particular dog in the pack, but to strike any part of its body, and with as much force as the occasion may require.

Another curious Eskimo practice, observed by the women, is that of daily chewing the boots of the household. As already intimated, these boots or moccasins are made of oil-tanned seal or deer-skins. The hair is always removed from the skin of which the foot of the moccasin is made, but not always from that part forming the leg. However, the point is this, that these moccasins, after having been wet and dried again, become very hard, and the most convenient or effective—or possibly the most agreeable—way of softening them seems to be by mastication. Whatever may be the reason for adopting this method, the fact is that nearly every morning the native women soften the shoes of the family most beautifully by chewing them. What to us would seem the disagreeable part of this operation cannot be thoroughly understood by one who has not some idea of the flavor of a genuine old Eskimo shoe.

In one of my trips in the land of the Eskimo I had an escort composed not only of men and women, old and young, but also of little children, several of whom could not have been more than five or six years old, and it was marvellous to see the powers of endurance of these little creatures, for they travelled along with the rest of the party, a distance of twenty-five miles, having no other object in view than that of seeing the white stranger.

The “shin-ig-bee,” or Eskimo sleeping bag, is an article essential to the comfort of the traveller when making long overland journeys during the cold winter season. It consists of a long oval waterproof skin bag, lined with another of similar shape, made of soft but heavy winter deer-skins. The opening is not at the top, but near it, across one side, and is made with flap and buttons, so that it can be closed up as closely as desired.

When the traveller is provided with this kind of a bed he does not trouble himself to make a snow lodge for the night, as without it he would have to do, but he simply crawls into his “shin-ig-bee,” buttons up the opening on the windward side, and goes to sleep, no matter what the weather or temperature may be. With the mercury at 40 below zero a man may in this way sleep warm and comfortable, without any fire, out upon the bleak frozen plains.