To deal with the mosquitoes! These insects abound in the summer-time, and are a terrible pest. It is a puzzle how they survive the winter, when everything is frozen solid, and the very spots which thaw under the sudden warmth of an arctic spring and allow them to swarm out in their malignant millions are iron-bound as the rocks themselves for the greater part of the year. So formidable are these insects that man himself has sometimes fallen a victim to their onslaught. On one occasion, a polar bear was crossing a swamp on the prowl, when he was attacked by mosquitoes. They stung his eyes, the inside of his ears, penetrated his nostrils and stung them. As the nasal passages became inflamed and swollen, the bear was forced to open his mouth to breathe, when his enemies swarmed in, fastened on to tongue, palate and throat, causing them also to swell, until the tormented brute succumbed to suffocation. His howls attracted the attention of some Eskimo hunters, who afterwards told the tale.
Another time, some women in a summer camp noticed a kyak (skin canoe) drifting about at sea in [[50]]a curious way, and a man went off to investigate. On arriving within hail he found a body in the canoe, leaning back stone dead; done to death in precisely the same way by mosquitoes.
Arctic birds are numerous. Most of them are migratory, but an eagle, a hawk, some owls and a raven, remain the year round. The most typical of all Arctic birds, the Snow Bunting (Plectrophenax nivalis), is the first to arrive and bring news of the spring. He comes about the same time as the Ptarmigan. Lastly comes the bird that always seems to greet the explorer on landing, the Purple Sandpiper (Tringa striata). He comes soon after the ducks—the Eider, the King Eider, the Pintail and the Harlequin. Between the two, there is a rapid vernal succession of birds, including sea pigeons and geese.
Eskimo hunters speak of the wild swan, on the south coast and in the vicinity of Frobisher Bay. The raven is the only arctic bird which does not change its plumage to match the surroundings. He is always aggressively, blatantly black. Possibly, being so able a match for any ordinary foe, this bird has no need to adopt the “protective resemblance” of white. The writer has watched a raven alight to secure some tit-bit of offal, and keep even the wolfish Eskimo dog at a respectful distance, with its huge beak. The bird is cunning to a degree. It will follow a trapper, note the position of his traps, and return to visit and despoil them of their bait as soon as the coast is clear. Then it takes up its stand on some convenient rock [[51]]just out of gunshot range, and watches the trapper on his return, just for all the world as if it relished his comments!
So much for the land birds. At sea there are petrels, gulls, and skuas. The natives do not recognise pictures of puffins or penguins, as these birds are not known on their coasts.
Again, the animals of the frozen north form quite a formidable list. There are three large lakes in Baffin Land (shown on the map at the end), linked together by rivers and making connection with the sea by river.
The southern lake is called “Angmakjuak” (“the great one”). The length of this sea may indeed exceed 120 miles by 40 in breadth in its central part. The central lake, “Tesseyuakjuak,” is possibly 140 miles long by 60 broad, and the northern lake “Netselik” (the place of seals) is at least 15 miles across. The difference in level between these great sheets of water is so inconsiderable that the natives can paddle with ease either up or down the waterways connecting them; perhaps none of them lie much higher than 300 feet above the sea. They teem with seal coming up from the coasts, and on the shores of Netselik old hunters will tell you they have seen the Red Fox, as well as white and smoky. This may well be so, as the fox is a denizen of Labrador, and might easily cross Hudson Strait on the ice during a hard winter. The seal of these lakes and of the coast (much hunted for food and for their skins by the [[52]]natives), are the grey haired seals of wide-spread commerce, but not the fine, fur-bearing animals whose pelts are of the first beauty and value. This latter is a different species and is protected by Government, only a certain number being allowed to be killed each year.
Bears, of course, abound. The female is the only arctic land creature which hibernates. Then there is the wolf, the white and blue fox,[1] the ermine, the arctic hare, a tailless snow mouse, or lemming, the musk ox, and—the most widely distributed of all—the cariboo or reindeer (Rangifer tarandus). It would be impossible to over-estimate the value of the last named beautiful creature, alive or dead, to all the peoples of the arctic countries, east or west. It would be superfluous here to remark much about it, except to note one interesting peculiarity. The reindeer differs from all other deer in that both sexes bear antlers.
The wolves, of course, are the inveterate enemies of the deer. In the winter, when the latter herds leave the lowlands and go up to pasture among the hills, where the snow lies less deep and can be more easily scratched away, they are dogged by the wolves. These hungry and voracious creatures know well enough that the deer are sentinelled while feeding by their fighting males, and make no movement of aggression until one of them chances to stray from [[53]]the herd. When this happens, the luckless animal is immediately headed off towards the shore and hunted down. The wolfish pack concentrates behind it and draws in on either side, so as to leave but one avenue of apparent escape. The quarry dashes down and away, out on towards the ice; but its weight is so great and its hoofs so sharp that the frozen crust of snow gives way beneath it and sorely cuts it about the legs. The deer loses blood and slackens in speed, so that the wolves, skimming easily over the treacherous surface, close in and soon drag it down.
It is a fact well known to the Eskimo hunter that the actual chase is put up by the female wolf, the male only coming in at the last, for the kill. The former do the hustling and placing of the victim, as it were, and the latter do the fighting and killing at the end.