Etah, Nunavut

“ The National Geographic photographers obtained excellent photographs of Arctic scenes and people. For the first time far northern scenes were recorded by the new natural color process of photography. All-together the scientific results more than justified the expedition and made up for the unfortunate termination of the flying.
[99] 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. ”

“ In the course of a few days a party of native Eskimos, with five sledges, made their appearance, and their friendly labours were found of no little value. They considered themselves amply repaid by a few presents of knives, needles, and the like, and after a short stay returned to their settlement at Etah. However, others soon took their place; and eventually [312] two or three families built their igloes in the neighbourhood of the American camp. The Eskimo women made themselves very useful by making and repairing clothing, and rendering other feminine courtesies ”

“ Since leaving Etah, we had passed the latitudes of the most northern extremities of Spitzbergen and Franz Joseph Land, and now only the northern points of the two most northern lands in the world, Cape Morris Jesup and Cape Columbia, lay a little beyond us. The northern-reaching fingers of all the rest of the great world lay far behind us below the ice-bound southern horizon. ”

“ Arrived at Etah this morning. After dinner I started ashore for the Eskimo tents with mother and father. We had not gone far when we were overtaken by one of father’s Eskimos with sledge and dogs. We all hopped on, and away we dashed, over the ice and through the pools of water until we came around the corner of the cliffs. Here we saw hundreds of little birds called ‘Little Auks’ perched on the rocks. Father said if we could get ashore we might find some eggs, as these birds lay their eggs among the loose rocks, without making a nest. Each bird lays one egg only. ”

“ The preceding summer we had driven the ship through the almost solid ice of the channels lying between Etah and Cape Sheridan; we had hunted through the long twilight of the autumn to supply ourselves with meat; we had lived through the black and melancholy months-long arctic night, sustaining our spirits with the hope of final success when the returning light should enable us to attack the problem of our passage across the ice of the polar sea. ”

“ The Eskimo women were put to work on our winter garments as soon as possible after leaving Etah, so that, in the event of our losing the ship, every man would have a comfortable outfit. In the North we wear practically the same clothing as the Eskimos, including the fur stockings with the fur on the inside. Otherwise we should have frozen feet often instead of only occasionally. A man who could not live without silk stockings would not be likely to attempt the North Pole. ”

“ Among the forceful and friendly natives of Etah sixty years since, in the days of Kane, was Shung-hu, famed equally for his qualities as a man and for his daring as a mighty hunter. He especially displayed his skill in the successful pursuit of the polar bear, whether on land along the coast, on the fast ice under the frowning snow-cliffs of Humboldt Glacier, or on the moving ice-floes of Smith Sound. ”

“ In our labours of the next month we missed Hans much. He had not yet returned, and the stories of him that came to us from Etah were the theme of much conversation and surmise among us. He had certainly called there as he promised, and given to Nessark’s wife an order for a pair of boots, and he had then wended his way across the big headland to Peteravik, where Shang-hu and his pretty daughter had their home. This intimation was given with many an explanatory grin; for Hans was a favourite with all, the fair especially, and, as a match, one of the greatest men in the country. ”

“ At this place we arrived at about six in the evening, and dropped anchor to await the arrival of the Peary which was still at Etah loading aboard the last of our equipment.
At Ig-loo-da-houny was encamped a considerable number of Eskimos, including several valuable assistants of Peary’s. Among these was Oo-bloo-ya, a very noted aide of Peary’s on nearly all his trips in the eighteen years of his work. Also sojourning at this settlement was Sipsoo of the heroic starvation party of 1906, which broke the world’s record of farthest north. ”

“ His hatred of the lads who had killed the geese had somewhat subsided. But Loggermore was as much against Andy and Chet as ever. He had it firmly fixed in his mind that if they were taken along, dire disaster would surely overtake the expedition.
The course of the Ice King was now up Baffin Bay and past Cape York to the entrance to Smith Sound. Although it was midsummer, the weather seemed to grow colder hourly, and it was not long before the boys were glad enough to don additional clothing.
“As soon as we get to Etah you will get your first taste of polar exploration,” said Barwell Dawson. ”

“ The important tribe of Nugumiut lives on Frobisher Bay and the adjoining Grinnell and Field Bays. On the largest floe of this part of the country, in Cumberland Sound, including Lake Nettilling, the largest tribe is settled: the Oqomiut. On Davis Strait ice floes are formed between Cape Mickleham and Cape Mercy, in Exeter Sound, and between Okan and Bylot Island. The tribes are distributed accordingly: the Saumingmiut of Ukiadliving, the inhabitants of Qarmaqdjuin with their winter settlement in Exeter Sound, and the Padlimiut and the Akudnirmiut farther north. ”

“ And the result of what has unquestionably been crooked jobbery at Ottawa is said to be that hundreds of prospectors and miners are moving out of the Yukon and into Alaska, where they say “there is fair play,”and a man may have what he finds. What I here tell you is the current talk in Dawson—quite unanimous talk—and I should like to have heard the other side, if there is one. ”

“ There are less than sixteen hundred Indians living over the entire Yukon region—a fact which speaks eloquently for an exceeding scantiness of the population of that vast landed expanse of this interior of the Alaskan mainland—a great arctic moor north of the Kvichpak, which is a mere surface of slightly thawed swale, swampy tundra, lakes and pools, sloughs and sluggish rivers, in the summer solstice, while the wildest storms of frigid winds, laden with snow and sleet, career in unchecked fury over them during winter. ”

“ Our tradition says that when the Island was first discovered by the Ottawas, which was some time before America was known as an existing country by the white man, there was a small independent tribe, a remnant race of Indians who occupied this island, who became confederated with the Ottawas when the Ottawas were living at Manitoulin, formerly called Ottawa Island, which is situated north of Lake Huron. The Ottawas thought a good deal of this unfortunate race of people, as they were kind of interesting sort of people ”

“ It is a great inland highway, which will make it possible for the explorer to penetrate the mysterious fastnesses of that still unknown region. The Yukon has its source in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia and the Coast Range Mountains in southeastern Alaska, about 125 miles from the city of Juneau, which is the present metropolis of Alaska. But it is only known as the Yukon River at the point where the Pelly River, the branch that heads in British Columbia, meets with the Lewes River, which heads in southeastern Alaska. ”

“ But while the alert American has been the first to stake, occupy and extract the wealth of the Klondike, and while by his energy and tireless perseverance he has made the Yukon Territory the greatest placer mining region of the world, yet this acquirement of vast wealth by Americans has not really been pleasing to the Canadians, nor to the government of Ottawa. So these governing gentlemen in Ottawa have put their heads together to discover how they, too, might profit, and especially profit, by the energy of the venturesome American. ”

“ Lawrence Island males stand just about the middle, but the females of this island, as, interestingly, also in the living, show markedly less favorably. The Nunivak skulls, as with the living, are somewhat above the average, while in the small Pilot Station (Yukon) group, just as in the near-by contingent of Marshall among the living, the males have the largest heads in this western territory. The lower Yukon Eskimo were also shown, it may be recalled, to be of a higher stature than the majority of the coast people. It is a group that deserves further attention. ”

“ The Eskimo of the Big Lake district, south of the Yukon, and from the Kaviak Peninsula, as well as the Malemut about the head of Kotzebue Sound, are on the contrary very finely proportioned and athletic men who can not be equaled among the Indians of the Yukon region. ”

“ At last, a cunning old woman found out—what will not a cunning old woman find out—the secret.
Upon a large plain, which stretched from very near the great village of the Ottawas, a full day's journey towards the land of the rising sun, there dwelt a people, with whom the Ottawas had always been at peace. They were a set of very awkwardly-shaped beings, of a stature not exceeding the stubborn little beast's which our white brother rode hither, with four legs, and a beard upon the neck as long as that worn by the people one sees at the City of the Rock. ”

“ The Ottawas claim this country, and hunt here, where game is very plenty. From hence we proceeded to the Ottawa village. This nation formerly lived at Detroit, but is now settled here, on account of the richness of the country, where game is always to be found in plenty. Here we were obliged to get out of our canoes, and drag them eighteen miles, on account of the rifts which interrupt the navigation. At the end of these rifts we came to a village of the Wyandotts, who received us very kindly, and from thence we proceeded to the mouth of this river, where it falls into Lake Erie. ”

“ There are many, many spots on the Upper Ottawa as fair and as romantic as the Lakes of Killarney, and they are very lovely. The trees on the islands have a variety that do not grow in our Canada, principally the glossy-leaved arbutus. ”

“ I have already stated that Fort Yukon is a few miles north of the Arctic Circle. Its longitude is also a little over 145 degrees west of Greenwich, and the local time is about four and a half hours slower than at166 Ottawa. Perhaps many who are tolerably familiar with the geography of Canada would be surprised to learn that even Fort McPherson, which lies east of the main chain of the Rocky Mountains is much farther west than any part of Vancouver Island, while Fort Yukon is ten degrees farther west still. ”

“ The nature of their interior is almost unknown. They are at present of use to no form of man unless it be to a few wandering Eskimo, who come to their coasts in the summer to kill seals.
The great NORTH-WEST TERRITORIES of the Canadian Dominion extend from the American frontier of Alaska (which is the 141° of W. long.) to the Ungava Peninsula, which abuts on Labrador. Where this vast region slopes to the Arctic Ocean and Hudson's Bay it is rather low and flat, except between Alaska and the Mackenzie River, and between the Mackenzie and the watershed of Hudson's Bay. ”

“ Some thirty-five villages of these hyperborean Innuits of Alaska are scattered along the coast between St. Michael’s and Point Barrow; they possess an aggregate (estimated) inhabitation of three thousand men, women, and children. The Diomede and Prince of Wales natives are the most active middlemen or commission merchants among their people; they conduct all the trade between the Asiatic Chookchie savages and the American Innuits, chiefly with those of Kotzebue Sound. ”

“ This is possible for both the rich and the poor, who live nearer each other in Ottawa than in most cities. In general there is an air of civilisation, which extends even over the country round. But in the country you see little signs, a patch of swamp, or thickets of still untouched primaeval wood, which remind you that Europeans have not long had this land. I was taken in a motor-car some twenty miles or more over the execrable roads round here, to a lovely little lake in the hills north-west of Ottawa. ”

“ Before proceeding with the history of the Ottawas and Chippewas some of their most important and peculiar legends will be given. They have a tradition of a great flood, as is recorded it the Bible History, and many other tribes of Indians who speak dialect of the Ottawa and Chippewa languages have the same story. The legends say it was caused, not by a rain, but by the great Ne-naw-bo-zhoo, who was the most remarkable, wonderful, and supernatural being that ever trod upon the earth. He could transfigure himself into the shape of all animals and live with them for a great length of time. ”

“ Every tribe of Indians has a different coat of arms, or symbolical sign by which they are known to one another. The emblem of the Ottawas is a moose; of the Chippewas, a sea gull; of the Backswoodsmen, a rabbit; that of the underground tribe, to which I belong, is a species of hawk; and that of the Seneca tribe of Indians is a crotch of a tree. The Ottawa Indians are very nearly extinct in the state of Michigan as there are only two or three families in the state, whose national emblem is a moose, showing them to be descended from pure Ottawa blood ”