An Ancient Aboriginal Encampment.
A group of Eskimo on the site of an ancient encampment of the Tooneet, or aborigines of that country. Tooneet used to build their houses of large stones filled in with moss. They were small but very strong, and are now, as far as can be known, extinct.
The deer feed in a peculiar manner. Once a pit has been sunk in the snow and the moss at the bottom is browsed down, the creatures do not attempt to enlarge the place, but scramble out again, only to dig a fresh hole and sink shoulder high in it at a little distance, and begin feeding afresh. The herd is always dogged by a pack of watchful wolves, ever on the qui [[41]]vive to attack; but the leaders’ vigilance never slackens, and battle breaks out in the wild at the first movement of aggression.
There are one or two particularly interesting facts, astronomical and otherwise, which account for the extraordinary physical phenomena and conditions of life in the polar regions. To begin with the seasons. The “Arctic” properly so called is geographically defined by that circle of latitude where the sun on midwinter day does not rise, and where on midsummer day it does not set. In Arctic countries the sun is never more than 23½ degrees above the horizon, and their intense cold is due, in summer, to the sharp obliquity of his rays, and in winter, to his entire absence. In the latitude of Blacklead Island, on December 25th, the whole orb of the sun is not visible, only the upper section shows above the horizon (unless mist or snow overcast the heavens) for a brief ten minutes at midday. On May 18th, conversely, the sun has been noted as shining for eighteen hours, the remaining six out of the twenty-four being a bright twilight, scarcely distinguishable from day.
The whole year round there is little to be seen but rocks and snow. No tilling, sowing, harvesting, mark the progress of the seasons or call man to the pursuits which have brought all civilisation in their train in milder climes. These seasons (which depend, of course, upon the position of the earth in its orbit round the sun, and upon the inclination of the polar [[42]]axis to the plane of the ecliptic giving a six month’s day and six month’s night at the poles), are markedly defined in Baffin Land. But far more distinctly so on shore than at sea, where unbroken ice may reign supreme throughout the greater part of the twelve-month. Winter sets in on the southern coast about the end of September; farther north a week or two earlier. By this date the hills are getting their snow caps, which extend downwards every day, and a thin sheet of ice appears upon the sea at night. A rim of ice along the shore marks the rise and fall of the tide. Frequent snowstorms now set in, and the ice at sea thickens and strengthens, until by November it extends as far as the eye can rove. This ice, however, is not stout or welded enough to bear sleds, except in the fiords and smaller bays, until nearly Christmas time. The sea freezes when the temperature of the air falls to about 15° F., and the whole surface of the water becomes covered with a mass of ice spicules known to polar sailors as Bay Ice, from its forming first in the bays of the coast. Presently this solidifies and thickens, growing ever whiter and more translucent in the process, and is broken, even in calm weather, by the action of gentle swell or the currents beneath into thousands of discs, large and small, like pans of ice. Sea ice is formed at a temperature of 3° F. below the freezing point of fresh water. There are many remarkable and interesting physical distinctions between ice formed on land and ice formed at sea. The latter when melted is quite drinkable, [[43]]being not nearly so salt as salt water. The intense cold, though, of drinking water so obtained tends to inflame the mucous membrane of the mouth and throat, and its slight salinity still further augments thirst; so it is never resorted to except of necessity. These pans eventually freeze together into one great solid floor of “pancake ice,” and the Eskimo, away hunting in the winter for seal, may camp and live for weeks, miles out from land on the frozen sea.
The days grow ever shorter and shorter until, in midwinter, there may be only a few hours or even minutes of daylight left. The long Arctic night lasts from September to March.
By the end of March, however, the sun is once more high in the heavens; the sudden spring has begun, and the sound is everywhere heard of water trickling under the snow. Readers of Alaskan romance will recall many a fine passage about the ice “going out” on the Yukon, and realise the terrific transformation undergone by the whole still, silent, rigid, frozen landscape when the iron bonds of winter at length give way. Springtime in the Arctics is a wonderful time. The thaw comes from below. The rocks take the heat, and the snow sinks down, baring more and more of them every day. It grows quite warm; bird sounds (ptarmigan and snow bunting) enliven all the day; ducks quack at the floe edge. Sunrise beams upon the Arctic hills until they lie smiling in the full beauty of sunshine on their mantles of untrodden snow. [[44]]
At the end of June, summer is come; the sun is really hot, and the long-covered earth, bared at last to its benign influence, puts forth heather and grass and flowers. For six months there is no more night. Its place is taken by the pale light that offers so strange a phenomenon to the dweller from the south. If the sky be unclouded, shadows will be seen pointing to the south. If clouds cover the heavens, the landscape stands out without shadow at all, clear and sharp under this strange illumination. There is no one point from which the light can come; it comes from everywhere. Owing to the length of this Arctic “day,” the ground has no time to radiate away the welcome warmth, hence the rapid growth of what vegetation the region may show. Again, as Nansen says so poetically: “In these regions the heavens count for more than elsewhere: they give colour and character … to the landscape … it is flooded with that melancholy light which soothes the soul so fondly and is so characteristic of the northern night.”
The stars are an open book to the Eskimo. They know all the principal groups, and use them for the directing of their journeys. They can make a very creditable chart of the northern heavens. They recognise the Plough, and the Bear (which is indeed called “Nanook”—the Bear), and they recognise the constellation of three stars in a straight line and at equal distances from each other, which they call the “Runners,” and describe as the spirits of three [[45]]brothers in pursuit. The arctic hunters are marvellous students of nature generally. They have the lore of the wild at their finger tips, and all the wisdom of the seasons. It is probable that this primitive people have preserved nearly all the original instincts—as to the presence of danger, right direction, etc., etc.—of primaeval man, which are all but extinct in the over-civilisation of the modern European.
In August autumn begins. Last year’s ice has been broken up and carried far out to sea. There are frequent showers of rain, and the nights begin again to encroach more and more on the day. It is about this time that the trading ships generally arrive and put in at various points along the coast to do business and refit. They pick up the annual intelligence of the whaling stations, and leave for home as soon as the new ice begins to form.