As the spring sealing season wears on towards the arctic summer, an entire change comes over the activities of the tribesfolk. They have, now, to prepare for the long trail inland to the feeding ground of the deer. Stacks of provisions are accumulated, and the boats and kyaks got ready for the trip to the head of the fiord, whence the expedition will make its start. The framework of the umiaks is carefully examined, and new pieces put in where required. All thongs and lashings are strengthened or renewed; secondary skins in former times were prepared as boat coverings, to be discarded when they became so waterlogged as to check the pace. As a rule, one of these large travelling boats is owned and shared by several families, and will contain the whole of their effects.
At length these preparations are complete. The day comes when a general packing up absorbs all the energies of the tribe. Tents are struck and folded away at the bottom of the boat, together with big consignments of sealskin buckets and hunting weapons. The women ship the ponderous and unhandy oars, children and dogs pile in on top of everything, and [[238]]the men take up their travelling stations fore and aft, in readiness to defend the transport from any sort of attack, or to launch a harpoon at any likely prey.
They pull away joyously and hilariously on the great summer trip. As often as the wind will allow they hoist the great square sail made of seal intestine, and one member of the crew takes up a station beside it with a water bucket, to keep it constantly wet. Otherwise it would dry, and split into ribbons before the breeze. At the present day canvas sails are used.
Every now and again, as they coast along among the islands, they put in here or there for fresh supplies of drinking water. At night they fetch some well-known point for an encampment. The umiaks are moored, heather and driftwood collected, fires lit, kettles slung, and the evening stew set to simmer, while the men forage afield for the next day’s provender. Then, rolling themselves up in their blankets, the travellers drop off to sleep right there on the ground, under the shelter of whatever cover it may afford, to be up and under way again before sunrise next morning.
The days pass very pleasantly. The scenery is grand, the weather clear and sunny; the water, gemmed with islands dark brown and green, is still as a mill-pond. The fleet of primitive, uncouth-looking skin boats, filled with barbaric northern folk with tattooed faces and guttural speech, reproduces a picture of pre-historic times. Many of these scenes of Eskimo life and enterprise are deserving of record [[239]]by the best of artists, if only to bring before us in these effete days of over-civilisation a vivid, still existent, picture of the very earliest adventures of the human race.
At length the head of the inlet is reached. The boats proceed up river at high tide to the appointed place of debarkation. Here the umiaks are hauled well inshore, unloaded, dismantled, and turned over, to be covered with a pile of stones against the time of the hunter’s return. The personal treasures of the women are also hidden away in some safe cavity among the rocks, and left there. Then the loads are carefully apportioned all round, and made up in bundles according to the strength of their carriers. The men bear the weapons and ammunition only and travel light, in order to go on ahead and secure game on the trail. Children are lightly loaded, and the old people carry nothing but their own belongings; so that the bulk of the heavy transport falls on the able-bodied women of the tribe. Each one toils along under tent poles and coverings, piles of skins and meat, and the baby of the family into the bargain. The whole staggering load is hoisted on to the woman’s back and secured by lashings round the waist and a broad leather band round the forehead. She is almost wholly eclipsed by the enormous burden.
So they file off, one by one, from the point of landing, and make their way to the uplands and the appointed general meeting place of all the tribes engaged upon the annual hunt. Thither many such [[240]]parties converge: the people from Fox Channel, the tribe from the neighbourhood of Kikkuktâkjuak, or Big Island, the Saddlebacks, the Noovingmeoot from Frobisher Bay, and as many more from north, south, east and west. They time themselves all to arrive as punctually as possible. The spot is a high plateau among the hills, at the head of the inlet described above.
An Eskimo in his Kayak.
With white whales in tow.