[The seal.]—
The flesh of the smaller seals forms such a staple of food, and their blubber and skin serve so many important purposes, that their capture is one of the most necessary pursuits at Point Barrow, and is carried on at all seasons of the year and in many different methods. During the season of open water many seals are shot from the umiaks engaged in whaling and walrus hunting or caught in nets set along the shore at Elson Bay. This is also the only season when seals can be captured with the small kaiak darts.
The principal seal fishery, however, begins with the closing of the sea, usually about the middle of October. When the pack ice comes in there are usually many small open pools, to which the seals resort for air. Most of the able-bodied men in the village are out every day armed with the rifle and retrieving harpoon, traveling many miles among the ice hummocks in search of such holes. When a seal shows his head he is shot at with the rifle, and the hunter, if successful, secures his game with the harpoon. This method of hunting is practiced throughout the winter wherever open holes form in the ice. A native going to visit his nets or to examine the condition of the ice always carries his rifle and retrieving harpoon, in case he should come across an open hole where seals might be found. The hunt at this season is accompanied with considerable danger, as the ice pack is not yet firmly consolidated and portions of it frequently move offshore with a shift of the wind, so that the hunter runs the risk of being carried out to sea. The natives exercise considerable care, and generally avoid crossing a crack if the wind, however light, is blowing offshore; but in spite of their precautions men are every now and then carried off to sea and never return.
The hunters meet with many exciting adventures. On the morning of November 24, 1882, all the heavy ice outside of the bar broke away from the shore, leaving a wide lead, and began to move rapidly to the northeast, carrying with it three seal hunters. They were fortunately near enough to the village to be seen by the loungers on the village hill, who gave the alarm. An umiak was immediately mounted on a flat sled and carried out over the shore ice with great rapidity, so that the men were easily rescued. The promptness and energy with which the people at the village acted showed how well the danger was appreciated.
At this season of the year a single calm night is sufficient to cover all the holes and leads with young ice strong enough to support a man, and occasionally before the pack comes in the open sea freezes over. In this young ice the seals make their breathing holes (adlu), “about the Bigness of a Halfpenny,” as Egede says, and the natives employ the stabbing harpoon for their capture. At the present day this is seldom used alone, but the seal is shot through the head as he comes to the surface, and the spear only used to secure him. Seals which have been shot in this way are sometimes carried off by the current before they can be harpooned. As far as I can learn, this practice of shooting seals at the adlu is peculiar to Point Barrow (including probably the rest of the Arctic coast as far as Kotzebue Sound), though the use of the una, as already stated, is very general.
This method of hunting can generally be prosecuted only a few days at a time, as the movements of the pack soon break up the fields of young ice, though new fields frequently form in the course of the season. After the January gales the pack is so firmly consolidated that there are no longer any open holes or leads, and when the spring leads open young ice seldom forms, so that this method of hunting is as a rule confined to the period between the middle of October and the early part of January.
With the departure of the sun, about the middle of November, begins the netting, which is the most important fishery of the year, but which can be prosecuted with success only in the darkest nights. The natives say that even a bright aurora interferes with the netting. At this season narrow leads of open water are often formed parallel to the shore, and frequently remain open for several days. The natives are constantly reconnoitering the ice in search of such leads, and when one is found nearly all the men in the village go out to it with their nets. A place is sought where the ice is tolerably level and not too thick for about a hundred yards back from the lead, at which distance the nets are set, often a number of them close together, in the manner already described, so that they hang like curtains under the ice, parallel to the edge of the open water. When darkness comes on the hunters begin to rattle on the ice with their ice picks, scratch with the seal call, or make some other gentle and continuous noise, which soon excites the curiosity of the seals that are swimming about in the open lead. One at length dives under the ice and swims in the direction of the sound, which of course leads him directly into the net, where he is entangled.
On favorable nights a great many seals are captured in this way. For instance, on the night of December 2, 1882, the netters from Utkiavwĭñ alone took at least one hundred seals. Such lucky hauls are not common, however. As the weather at this season is often excessively cold, the seals freeze stiff soon after they are taken from the net, and if sufficient snow has fallen they are stacked up by sticking their hind flippers in the snow. This keeps them from being covered up and lost if the snow begins to drift. I have counted thirty seals, the property of one native, piled up in this way into a single stack. The women and children go out at their convenience with dog sleds and bring in the seals. A woman, however, who is at work on deerskin clothing must not touch a hand to the seals or the sled on which they are loaded, but may lend a hand at hauling on the drag line. When the seals are brought to the edge of the beach they must not be taken on land till each has been given a mouthful of fresh water. We did not learn the object of this practice, but Nordenskiöld, who observed a similar custom at Pitlekaj, was informed that it was to keep the leads from closing.[375]
When the lead keeps open for several days, or there is a prospect of its opening again, the hunter leaves his gear out on the ice, sometimes bringing his ice pick, scoop, and setting pole part way home and sticking them up in the snow alongside of the path. In 1884 a lead remained open for several days about 3 or 4 miles from the village, and the natives made a regular beaten trail out to it. When we visited the netting ground the lead had closed, but nearly all the men had left their gear sticking up near it, with the nets tied up and hung upon the ice picks. They had built little walls of snow slabs as a protection against the wind. The season for this netting ends with the January gales, which close the leads permanently.