Friday, October 23. Last night it snowed a very little, and this morning it is cloudy and gloomy. We sat up till midnight, then the alarm was set for two o’clock, at which time coal had to be put on the fire—an operation to be repeated at four, and again at six. Mané has been with us all day, with her two piccaninnies, at work on deerskin stockings. The elder child, Anadore, is just at the age (two years) when she is into everything, and she tried our patience to the limit. We cannot allow Mané to take the furs to her igloo to sew, as they would be filled with “koomakshuey” (parasites), and some one must stay in the room with her to superintend her work. I am doing very little besides getting the meals and fixing up odd jobs about the rooms; reading Greely’s work is about the extent of my labor. To-night at nine o’clock the thermometer is 10°, and the moon is shining brightly.
Sunday, October 25. This morning there was about three inches of new snow on the ground, and the cliffs back of the house are beginning to look white. About 2 P. M. huskies were seen coming across the bay, and a half-hour later they had arrived,—Kayunah, his “koonah” (wife) and three piccaninnies, and Arrotochsuah, his koonah and one piccaninny. Arrotochsuah’s koonah was very much amused at me, and kept screaming “Chimo koonah!” (Welcome woman!) until I said “Chimo! Chimo!” and then she laughed and laughed. The other woman was more quiet. These Eskimos are much cleaner and more presentable people than Ikwa and his family. Later in the evening I gave each woman two needles, a cake of soap, and a box of matches. Arrotochsuah’s koonah presented me with a spoon made by herself from a piece of walrus tusk, and used by her piccaninny, Magda, a boy about twelve years old, ever since he could feed himself. In return I gave the boy a looking-glass, and I made a similar present to Kayunah’s smallest. Mr. Peary allowed all hands to sleep on the floor in the boys’ room. It is amusing to listen to the conversation between our men and the huskies. In one instance the boys could not quite make out whether a man had died from eating walrus or the walrus had eaten him, etc.
Monday, October 26. To-day is the last day the sun will be above the horizon until February 13th.
CHAPTER VII
ESKIMO VISITORS
Our Visitors Leave for their Homes—Departure of a Party to Build a Stone Hut in Tooktoo Valley—Arrival of the Most Northerly Family in the World—The Last Hunting-party of the Season Goes to Five-Glacier Valley—Still the Natives Come—Mama’s Birthday—Finishing Touches to our Winter Quarters—Eclipse of the Moon—Beginning of the Winter Routine—Matt Installed as Cook—Thanksgiving.
Wednesday, October 28. Yesterday Nowdingyah and his piccaninny, a little girl about two and a half years old, put in their appearance. The child was nicely dressed in a blue-fox “kapetah” (overcoat) and seal cap trimmed with fox, but she was not as pretty as Kayunah’s little one. I gave her a looking-glass, too, which amused her father as much as it did the child. After supper Mr. Peary brought out his reading-glass, and Arrotochsuah’s wife immediately said she had seen a white man have one at the northern settlement of Etah, and she showed us how he had used it as a burning-glass. We are all curious to know what party of white men she had seen. The whole evening till midnight was spent in taking flashlight photographs of the Eskimos and ethnological measurements of Kayunah.
Our Eskimo visitors left for their homes this morning. At noon the boys, with Dr. Cook in charge, started for Five-Glacier Valley to hunt reindeer and to bring the cached venison down to the edge of the ice, where Ikwa will call for it in a few days and bring it back on the sledge. The boys will then proceed to the head of the bay, and under Dr. Cook’s direction build a stone igloo for the use of the inland ice-party next spring. About three o’clock Matt returned for a tin of biscuits which had been forgotten, and informed us that Verhoeff had frozen his nose and face severely, and that Astrup’s cheeks had also been nipped. The temperature was –10°, and a fresh southeaster was blowing across the bay. Ikwa and Mané came in this afternoon and added quite a number of words to our Eskimo vocabulary; the former also gave us an account of the murder of his father by tattooed natives while out after bear off Saunders Island.
Saturday, October 31. Ikwa started this morning with the sledge and dogs for Arrotochsuah’s igloo, where he expects to get a load of hay. About 2 P. M., while we were out, Mr. Peary shoveling snow against the wall, we saw a dark object on the ice, and with the aid of the glass made out a sledge and two people, but they did not seem to get any nearer, and in a short time disappeared. About six they arrived—Annowkah, his wife M’gipsu, and an awful-looking baby of about two months. They came from Nerki, a place beyond Arrotochsuah’s, two days’ journey from Redcliffe. They are cleaner and more intelligent-looking than any natives we have yet seen. In conversation we discovered that they were the most northerly family of Greenland, and consequently of the globe.
Mr. Peary and I are having great times keeping house by ourselves; he brings in the snow for water, the coal and coal-oil, and keeps watch during the night, while I cook, wash dishes, sweep (without a broom—the only article of importance that was overlooked in the preparations for our Arctic journey), and look after Mané, who is here with her two children working on the reindeer skins. We shall not be sorry when the boys return and take some of these duties off our shoulders.