A boy's-eye view of the Arctic

by Kennett Longley Rawson

On this strip of coast upon which Etah is located dwells a group of people—the northernmost race in the world. These people are known to the white race as Eskimos, which means “meat eaters,” but among themselves the appellation Innuit, “the people,” is applied.

They are a very strange group and little is known about them. It is thought that they are of Mongolian origin. Whence they came and by what path, however, has always remained a mystery and is apparently little closer to solution now than formerly. At the present time they are distributed along the Arctic coasts of America, Greenland and Eastern Asia.

The particular branch of the race which lives on the North Greenland shore was unknown until 1818, when Sir John Ross worked his little vessel through the ice of Melville Bay to Cape York. As he lay off the Cape he observed several black dots moving towards him over the ice. These soon resolved into Eskimos, and dog sleds. On their nearer approach he entered into a conversation with them through an interpreter from South Greenland. He then told them he came from far to the south. Upon the receipt of this information they assumed an incredulous air and informed him that surely no one could live in the south as all their ice drifted off in that direction and by this time that region must be absolutely choked with it.

For many years these “Arctic Highlanders,” to use the rather poetical name Ross gave them, remained unvisited. In 1850-51, however, Saunders wintered among them in the ship North Star. He was the first man ever really to live with them. To-day on the bay named after his ship, Knud Rasmussen, the explorer, maintains a trading station.

Two years after the departure of Saunders, the little brig Advance with Elisha Kent Kane, “America’s first Arctic explorer,” in command, rounded Cape York, and gallantly beat up Smith Sound to Renssaeler Harbor. While Kane was there the Eskimos sledged up to see him. With a gun on his shoulder he went forth to meet them, with so great suspicion did he regard them. But they appeared peaceable and he had no occasion to employ the firearm. Kane brought back the first reliable reports on the Eskimos. However, he did not make much use of their knowledge and skill, nor of their dog teams, in his explorations. Seven years after Kane, in 1860, Dr. Isaac Israel Hayes, one of Kane’s men, revisited Etah and entered into extensive relations with the natives. For the first time did the Eskimos aid in the work of exploration in which they were later to take so conspicuous a part with Peary and MacMillan. But Hayes never fully trusted them, and for awhile he considered himself and his men the objects of a conspiracy on the part of the Eskimos to murder them all.

After Hayes, with the exception of a winter which the crew of the Polaris spent just north of Etah, the Eskimos remained unvisited until the arrival of Peary. Peary quickly realized the great value of the Eskimo and his sturdy team of dogs. He gained their confidence and esteem. Without experiencing any of the evils which the earlier expeditions had expected from the Eskimos, he worked with them for eighteen years. It was largely due to the skill and energy of the Eskimos and the power in their sturdy dogs that Peary eventually conquered the Pole. In 1876 Markham, of the English North Pole Expedition, reported to his government that he considered it impossible to attain the Pole. He relied on the unaided labors of his men to pull the sledges, a terrific task which well demonstrated the bravery and stamina of the British. In a little over a month, Markham and his men traveled seventy-three miles from the ship, advancing their sledges by man power alone, and nearly dying with exhaustion. Peary in three days by the aid of Eskimos and dog sledges exceeded this distance with ease. This clearly shows the superiority of the Eskimo method of travel. Peary never had cause to regret his employment of the Eskimo, and they did not play him false in spite of the beliefs of the older explorers.

Four years after the Pole had been conquered, the American flag again entered Smith Sound. This time it snapped in the breeze over the head of one who would bring it new renown. Upon the scene had appeared the fit successor of the great Peary—MacMillan. With the aid of Eskimos and dog teams in the spring of 1914 he turned his steps westward over Ellesmere and Axel Heiberg Land. One hundred and fifty miles he penetrated the Polar Sea towards the land which Peary had seen. But he found this land had been nothing but a mirage, and regretfully he and his Eskimos turned their steps homeward. For four years he lived among them, and studied their way of living, and his researches greatly extended our knowledge concerning them. Thus at last the Eskimo came into his own as the helpmate and companion of the white man on his trips in the Arctic regions.

On the 1925 MacMillan expedition I had the opportunity of observing them and their interesting customs. At the time of year in which I was among them they were living in sealskin tents or tupiks. The rock igloos had been abandoned for their summer airing. The Eskimos removed the dome of their arched rock igloos on the arrival of warm weather. This airing of the igloos is about the only sanitary act the natives perform. They rarely if ever wash themselves or their clothes.

Their methods of food preservation also are rather distasteful to a civilized person. After walrus or other meat has been secured, it is cut up and then stacked in a pile. Then over all is placed a large number of rocks. In this way it is stored until there is need of it. In a few days these caches can be located by the smell alone.

But at all things requiring a good eye, a cool head and a steady hand, they excel. A good example of this is the way in which they make their rope. It is made by taking the skin of a seal which has been so skinned that the hide comes off in concentric bands. Then one of the natives pulls the band along while another holds a knife. Even a small tremble in the hand of the one holding the knife would cut through the thin line, ruining it, but so accurate is their handiwork that the lines vary in width hardly at all and the rope seems so uniform that one would think it had been made in a machine. They also skin small seals in such a way that the skin pulls off absolutely whole with but one perforation. This skin is so carefully removed from the flesh that it will hold air without leaking!