Kak, the Copper Eskimo

by Vilhjalmur Stefansson; Violet Irwin

Kak was not counted a poor boy though he possessed very little. Eskimos do not go in for possessions. They are a migratory people, always moving from place to place, and so learn to get on with a small amount of gear, as we do in camp life. Kak was contented and had no cares. He never had to make up his mind whether to play with his meccano, or his electric train, or his radio. He was entirely ignorant of such things and yet not a bit dull. He found plenty of sport up there in the Arctic to keep him merry and bright. First of all his parents owned so little they were never worried about taking care of things; with nothing to do but kill a few animals for food and fuel and clothes they were as gay as children, always laughing and joking from morning to night. The boy could scarcely remember a day that was not full of fun and laughter.

In the winter they lived in a snow house. You would think it must be cold inside a snow house but it was not, because their large lamp burned in the house all the time and kept it cozy and warm; so warm that Kak usually skinned off his coat and shirt as soon as he came indoors. He did not come in often during the daylight, for he enjoyed the cold outside, and he was a singularly independent lad, doing just what he pleased. That is the Eskimo boys’ compensation for not having toys: they are allowed to do as they like. In the morning Kak did not get up till he wanted to. He did not have to wash his neck, nor mind his table manners, nor go to school; and he was never, never sent to bed. You see as there was only one room in the whole house the family had to be jolly all together all the time. In the evenings when the grown-up folks sat around telling stories and singing songs, Kak stayed with them, and so did his little sister, Noashak. They sat up as long as they possibly could, and when the sandman came and shut their eyes in spite of them, they toppled over asleep wherever they were, and somebody tucked them in between fur blankets.

Kak, whose name means the top of anything or summit, as of a mountain, was twelve years old when he built his first house by himself. It was a horrible experience which he will remember all his life.

The way to build a snow house is to cut big blocks the shape of dominoes out of a hard snowdrift and set them up on edge in a circle, leaning them inward a little toward the center. You must carve the first block diagonally in half so that its back makes a hill for the second row to run up on; and when you have started properly you can keep on building one row above the next, going up and around like the red and white on a barber pole, and always leaning them inward till they just naturally meet at the top, where you sometimes poke a very small hole for ventilation. The finished dwelling is a beehive of snow—awfully cold snow which has frozen together safe and solid in a surprisingly short time. Next you dig a long tunnel through the drift and a hole in the floor of the house, and that is the way you go in and out, like rabbits and foxes burrowing to their dens.

A family will occupy this sort of house only about three weeks; for the heat inside melts the snow walls, and as they cool off somewhat every night they turn gradually to ice, and the house grows colder and colder (for ice is much colder than snow) till the owners decide to have a new one. A few houses are magnificent with windows, ice windows, which being troublesome to make are carefully removed and placed in the next house when it is built. Even if the Eskimos continue to live in the same place they will build a new house every few weeks. When they are too careless to bother about windows, plenty of light filters through the white walls; and while the house is occupied the lamp is always burning brightly inside.

Kak did not live very long in his first house. He spent only one night under its low dome, and felt very glad indeed that he did not have to stay there a second night. The way of it was this:

Taptuna, Kak’s father, was going seal hunting with a neighbor. These neighbors, who were the only other people living within ten miles, had used up all their supply of blubber. Now blubber is the fat part of seals out of which drips the oil for the lamps, and as the lamp is the Copper Eskimo’s only means of warming his house and cooking his food, this was a serious situation. In his need the neighbor came to borrow from Taptuna, and begged him to help hunt seals. Taptuna readily agreed, for he was a kind-hearted man; so they started out early. But seal hunting through the ice is slow and difficult, and the first day they failed to get any. The next morning, however, while crossing a sandspit, they discovered the remains of a dead whale, half buried in drifted snow and earth. It must have been two years old at least, and the bears and other animals had eaten most of the fat; but Taptuna and Hitkoak hoped by cutting off parts of the outside flesh, which would make good enough dog feed, to strike an ample supply of blubber underneath. So they abandoned the hunt and fell on this free gift, eager to get all they could and that at once, for sled tracks in the snow showed other Eskimos knew about the prize.

They worked all day, not stopping to drag the meat home but piling it up chunk on chunk, only to find by evening that some crafty bear had clawed under and scooped away the very store of blubber on which they were counting. It meant they must hunt next morning and must catch a seal without fail.

Both men hated to waste the heaps of frozen whale flesh which had given them all the work they wanted to hack off with soft copper knives. Copper will not make nearly so sharp a knife as steel. Taptuna and Hitkoak, sweating after their labor, wished they had stopped about noon, harnessed the dogs, and sledded home some of this good food. It was too late now, and to-morrow they must hunt. Oil for the lamps was more necessary than dog feed. Until they killed a seal the neighbor would go on borrowing blubber from Taptuna, and it was already past mid-winter so he had not much left for his own family.

It looked as if their effort over the whale was going to be a dead loss; but the older, wiser man promised to sleep on the question, and next morning, when Guninana was boiling their breakfast, he said: