“A Boat full of Eskimos”
Now Etah is on the east shore of Smith Sound and Fort Conger, the place where AH-NI-GHI´-TO’S father hoped to meet his vessel, is on the west side and nearly three hundred miles farther north. The ice here was very thick and only small lakes of water were to be seen through it, in the direction in which the ship must go.
Both Captain Sam and AH-NI-GHI´-TO’S mother felt that there was little chance of getting to Fort Conger in their small ship. Before leaving Etah the Captain must get hundreds of tins of canned goods, barrels of flour, cases of sugar, rice, biscuit, oatmeal, etc., etc., on board to take with them. These had all been piled near the beach by AH-NI-GHI´-TO’S father, ready to be put on the ship as soon as she came.
This took more than twenty-four hours and during this time AH-NI-GHI´-TO was ashore as much as possible meeting some of her old Eskimo friends and getting acquainted with others. That night she wrote in her diary:
“August 20, 1900.—Ashore all day. Took a look at father’s house. It is very empty and very small. I also looked into the tents of the Eskimos. They are dirty places. Am so sorry not to find more children here. Only a boy nine or ten years old and a baby. They are going on the ship with us, so I guess I will have a good time. The ‘grown-ups’ thought it was very funny to see me jump rope with the ‘Bosun,’ and also to see me swing. They helped me pick flowers, which I have just finished pressing, and they took me to the glacier which mother says is a river of ice that flows down the mountain-side toward the sea just as if it were water, only it moves very slowly; not more than a few feet in a year. They tried to tell me about my father, but I did not understand them very well. I gave one of the women a white cup and she was very proud to have it. Early in the morning we hope to get away from here and take with us five grown Eskimos and two children. I wonder will we meet father soon.”
“Father’s House is very small.”
“Coasted down the Slopes of the Ice Hummocks”