Our Snow-igloo.
Our igloo proved icy cold, and I shall never forget the difference of temperature between inside and outside. It was just like going from a cellar into a temperature of 90°, and we resolved that unless it was storming we would in future sleep without shelter. Among our breakfast callers was the wife of Koomenahpik, Nauyahleah, the most comical old soul I had yet seen. She evidently felt it her duty to entertain me, and began to tell me all about herself and her family; she let me know that I had already seen one of her sons at Redcliffe, whose name is Tawanah, and who lives still farther up Inglefield Gulf; he had stopped at Ittiblu, she said, on his return from the Peary igloo, and told her what a large koona Peary’s koona was, and how white her skin was, and that her hair was as long as she could stretch with her arms. She followed us wherever we went, and chatted incessantly—whether we were taking photographs or making observations for latitude and time, it made no difference to her. If we did not answer her she would sing at the top of her voice for a few minutes, and then chatter again. She showed us a number of graves, which are nothing but mounds of stones piled on the dead bodies, and told us who lay beneath the rocks.
At eight in the evening we left Ittiblu, with four additional dogs obtained from Panikpah. All night long we dashed on over the smooth surface of Whale Sound, except where we passed Academy Bay. Here from one cape to the other the snow was soft and several inches deep. Again the sun only left us for a short time, and in spite of a temperature of –35°, the ride was a delightful one.
About two A. M. we were abreast of another beautiful glacier, a great river of ice slowly making its way from the eternal inland ice to the sea. The smooth and even appearance of all the glaciers, Mr. Peary told me, was due to the blanket of snow which covered them.
It took us about an hour to pass the face of the ice-sheet, which in places towered above us to a height of one hundred feet and more. As we rounded the southwest corner Kyo sang out, “Inuits, Inuits,” and, looking ahead, we saw an Eskimo snow-igloo built up against the rocks on the shore. Scattered about on the ice-foot lay about a dozen seals, some whole, and some partially cut up; three or four young white seals, a number of sealskins, a large sledge and a small toy-sledge patterned exactly like the large one, and coils of sealskin and walrus lines. In the “tochsoo,” or entrance to the igloo, was tied a young dog, who had no idea of awakening his master, for he only looked at us and gave no sound.
In response to Kyo’s shouts a man came slowly crawling out, rubbing his eyes, and showing every evidence of having been suddenly awakened out of a sound sleep. This proved to be Kudlah, a young native whose home was at the head of Inglefield Gulf, and who on a visit to Redcliffe during the winter had been nicknamed by our boys “Misfortune.” Kudlah had a hang-dog sort of expression. We were told that a woman would only live with him a year and then leave him, it being the privilege of the Eskimo maiden to return to her parents’ roof at the end of a year, provided there is no family, if she finds that she has made a mistake. “Misfortune” had grown very fond of the “kabloonah’s kapah” (white man’s food), especially coffee and crackers, during his visit at Redcliffe, and he now came right to our sledge and asked if we had no “kapah” for him. He told us that he, with his wife, and Tawanah with his wife, a son twelve years of age, and three smaller children, were on their way to Redcliffe. They had left their home, Nunatochsoah, at the head of Inglefield Gulf, two days before, and had walked all day and until midnight, when they built the snow-house and camped. The women and children being very tired, and seal-holes, whence young seals are procured, being plentiful in this neighborhood, they decided to rest a few days and hunt seal. I asked him where they found the pretty little white creatures, and he told me that the mother seal crawls out on the ice through the cracks and hollows out a place for herself under the snow, not disturbing the surface at all, except perhaps by raising it a little, and thus giving it the appearance of a snow-drift or mound. Here she gives birth to her young, and stays with them until they are old enough to take to the water, leaving them only long enough to get food for herself.
To me these mounds did not seem different in appearance from the ordinary snow-mound, but the trained eye of the native immediately distinguishes the “pussy igloo” (seal-house); he walks softly up to it, and puts his ear close to the snow and listens. If he hears any sign of life he jumps on the mound as hard as he can, until it caves in, and then, with a kick in the head, he dispatches the young one. Then he lies in wait for the mother seal to return to her young, when she is promptly harpooned.
SLEDGING INTO INGLEFIELD GULF.
While Kudlah was entertaining us, Tawanah and the two women came out of the igloo. The latter were very much interested in me, and wanted to know if there were any more women like me at Redcliffe. When told that there were not, but that they were plentiful in the American country, they asked, “Are they all so tall, and so white, and have they all such long hair? We never have seen women like you.”