Now and then visitors came in from distant villages to see their relatives. Everybody flocked to the hut where they were visiting, to hear the news. There was much to tell about success in hunting, about marriage and birth, sickness and death. For months, the village had been cut off from all intercourse with the outside world, because the strong currents that washed the foot of the promontories prevented the formation of ice, and only after the cold had continued long enough, was the sea covered by a continuous floe, which allowed the villagers to travel unhampered from place to place.
One day a number of travelers were discovered, whose sledge, dogs and gait did not seem familiar. The news spread rapidly through the village and the women and children assembled on a point of vantage, straining their eyes in an attempt to discover who the visitors were. Soon, Pakkak recognized an old friend who lived many days’ journey away, and whom he had not seen for many years. He shouted, “There is Eiderduck.” When the women knew that the visitors were friends of Pakkak, they burst forth in song and laughter. They waved their arms and jumped about. The frightened children hid, crying, behind their mothers. Most of the men went down to the ground ice to meet the strangers, and to help them to unload their sledges. Pakkak led Eiderduck and his companions to a snow house, and treated them hospitably with frozen seal meat.
While they were eating, the people crowded into the house. They sat on the bed platform, and squatted on the floor until there was no more room. Those who could not get into the house crouched in the entrance to get a glimpse of the visitors, and to hear what they had to say. All the older people had some friends in the villages through which the travelers had passed, and therefore their reports were listened to with keenest interest, interest which communicated itself to the younger generation, who thus learned about the family relationships and the history of all the people who lived many miles up and down the coast line.
One of the saddest stories that Eiderduck had to tell was that of some people who had been caribou hunting in the fjord Muddy-Water. In the fall, when they were preparing to move camp, the frost set in very suddenly, covering the sea with ice. Heavy snows fell in calm weather. The sledges and the dogs sank deeply into the soft snow so that the people were practically unable to move. Soon they were starving. Many died. In one house lived an old woman with her three sons and a daughter. Her oldest son, Powlak, decided to go to the neighboring village to seek aid of the people. He left his only surviving dog with his mother, that she might use it for food after he was gone. Then he started on his dangerous tramp through the soft snow.
A short time after Powlak had left, his mother missed the dog. She went in search of it, and found that its footprints led to one of the neighboring huts and did not come out again. For some time no sound had been heard in that hut. She thought that the people were dead and she had avoided going in. Now, however, when she needed the dog, she overcame her fear. She called in through the entrance and found that the people were alive, although hardly able to stir. She asked, “Is my dog here?” The house owner denied that it was there, saying that she had not seen it. The old woman, however, searched, and finally when she lifted the heather on the bed she found its skinned body. She became very angry and took the meat. The people were so weak and famished that they could not resist. She took the dog home and she and her children lived on it. Her neighbors soon died of exhaustion. The pangs of hunger had so hardened Powlak’s mother, at other times a kind-hearted woman, that she only thought of her own salvation, and felt no pity for the sufferings of others.
When Powlak reached the neighboring village, he found that the people had caught two whales in the fall of the preceding year. He told them that the people in Muddy-Water were starving,—that a few had tried to reach other places, but that they must have perished in the attempt, since nothing had been heard from them. Powlak’s friends were very kind to him. They gave him food to eat and for a few days they did not let him return to his starving mother. They said to him, “Stay here. Why do you want to perish? Your mother, your brothers and your sister are certainly dead by this time.” Powlak, however, said, “I am sure they are alive.” When he insisted on returning as soon as he had recuperated, his friends gave him an old dog and a whale-bone toboggan which they loaded with whale meat, skin and blubber. He started on his way back.
When he reached his home after untold difficulties, he went to the window of his mother’s hut and asked, standing outside, “Are you all dead?” His mother replied, “There is life in us yet.” Then he went in, gave them the whale meat and whale skin, and learned of what had happened during his absence. The food which he had obtained gave him the strength to go out, and he had the good fortune to find a seal hole and as the season progressed, conditions became better and he was able to supply his family with food and clothing. A great number of the villagers, however, had starved to death....
It was late in the night when the crowd began to dwindle leaving Eiderduck and the other visitors to sleep.
As the season progressed and the sun rose, the seals whelped. The skin of the young seal is white and wooly and highly prized for warm clothing. Therefore, the whole village set out to hunt for them. The dogs take the scent of the seal hole, and the poor pup is dragged out with a hook and the hunter kills it by stepping on it.