Then winter comes down upon the land once more. The sky, like velvet, is bespangled with stars of incomparable brilliance, burning like opals. The Northern Lights, like lambent curtains of amazing illumination, swing weirdly through the sky; the blanched hills and the frozen fiords stand out in ghostly black and white under the startling moonlight. There is no sound save the sharp cracking of rock or ice under the strain of the intense frost, the uneasy growl of dogs, the distant howl of a wolf.
Suddenly, however, there may be a chorus of barking in the night, as a strange team of dogs sweeps into view up the fiord, or the harbour, and visitors [[46]]descend upon the camp. Except for the noise, one could imagine the newcomers to be the ghosts of ancient hunters haunting their old grounds. But cheery cries, the crack of whips and the howls of the dogs, dispel any such idea as the group comes up. They are stalwart and sturdy individuals enough, clad from head to foot in deerskin, and covered with rime and frost. They are seeking hospitality here, and at once friendly doors are open to them, invitations are readily extended and accepted, and soon everyone of the strangers is comfortably bestowed (after Eskimo notions of comfort) in one or another of the various dwellings, the dogs are unharnessed and fed, and peace resumes her tranquil sway.
The natives thus name the four seasons: Opingrak, spring; Auyak, summer; Okeoksak, autumn (i.e., material for winter), and Okeok, winter. The months are named by the sequence of events—the coming of the ducks, the birth of the reindeer fawns, the coming of the fish (sea trout), etc., as “the duck month,” “the fawn month,” “the fish month,” etc. And the days are distinguished as “oblo,” to-day; “koukpât,” to-morrow; “ikpuksâk,” yesterday; “ikpuksâne,” the day before yesterday, and so forth. “Akkâgo” means next year, and “akkâne” is last year. [[47]]
CHAPTER III
Arctic Flora and Fauna
Another striking feature of the Arctics is the effect upon the appearance and character of those shores touched by the Gulf Stream, as compared with those where its waters never pass. Thus the coast of Greenland is comparatively luxuriant in vegetation and its seas teem with fish, while Baffin Land, opposite, washed by arctic currents, is desolate and barren, with no fishing off its shores. The same contrast holds good with respect to the north and south coasts of Hudson Strait. There are no cod off Baffin Land, but the Labrador fishermen ply their trade right into Hudson Bay.
Baffin “Island” is a trackless, mysterious continent where, high up on the summits of some of the mountains, there are vast lakes fed from hidden springs—or from streams from still higher ranges—wherein salmon trout abound! At least, these fish are exactly like the sea trout which come up the rivers every year to spawn, save that the hue of the belly is bright red. The Eskimo point to this as proof that they never go down to the sea, and call them the “dirty fish,” since they never quit the lakes. How they ever [[48]]got into them is a mystery the arctic zoölogist must be left to solve, since neither hunter nor fisherman can offer a suggestion. The trout could not have attained any such level upstream. It would almost appear—if one might hazard a guess—that at some remote geologic epoch this part of the N. American continent was submerged, for the Eskimo of Baffin Land speak of an inland sea, now dry, where fossil remains are to be found of large creatures such as the whale and walrus. They come across fossil fish, indeed, in their more extended wanderings, also shells, and bring them back to camp as curiosities.
The Eskimo are properly a seaboard people and seldom penetrate farther inland than thirty miles from the coast, unless during the annual deer hunt, when they may be away for a couple of months, according to the distance the quest may take them.
Possibly these unaccountable trout are the descendants of fish cut off from access to the sea, when the gradual rise of the continental level left lakes of originally salt water among the ranges. Where they are not without marine life (excepting those wonderful seaweeds which are found at the tropics as well as in the arctic), the waters round these shores contain many species of fish commonly known elsewhere, only in a much less developed state. Such creatures as sea anemones, shrimps, sea snails, small squid, and salt water centipedes, are to be found on the arctic beach. Naturalists enumerate a formidable list of the sort, bristling with scientific nomenclature. Then [[49]]there are the mosquitoes, of which more anon, and small yellow, white and brown butterflies. It is indeed due to the comparatively rich fauna and flora of the arctic regions, both east and west, that arctic exploration has been carried out so frequently. The utter absence of plant or animal or human life in the dead antarctic has greatly militated against the success of southbound expeditions.