PZ ''' 3 P32 ^ iiVb' V' • ( 't!f»MSfe3afit,'iiii'gi?;ria''Jnlr^ff^?ti1ffi \^,':}\ H'^ LIBRARY ANNEX P4i'- ..^' / .:ffl!*;::3S^£iE]snaEajC': Hatt ajalbgj of Agriculture Kt (fornell UntaetaitH 3tlfata, K. 1- Cornell university Library PZ 9.P32S J Eskimos, the bears, th Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924014519254 SNOWLAND FOLK y/ 5^ ^K ■ i^- Pau tion, and the great head and shoulders would come crowding against my legs, while an en- couraging word or touch of the hand was suffi- cient to bring the big paws upon my shoulders, and the fierce yet intelligent face on a level with my own. Poor Nalegaksoak ! I often think of him with his companions, Pau and Miss Tahwan^h, following my snowshoe tracks across the "Great Ice " in the brilliant Arctic sunlight, his ears alert to catch my voice, and his eyes intent upon the little flag in my hand. I mourned the loss of a friend and noble dog when, in the 12 NALEGAKSOAK THE KING great white journey to the far north, a bite in the leg received in one of his frequent battles lamed him, and after hmping along two or three days by my side, he fell behind, and a storm coming up, I never saw him again. But I had many other dogs besides Nalegak- soak. Pau, Nalegaksoak's coal-black companion, was also an affectionate dog, a little smaller than Nalegaksoak, but like him a born fighter. Nale- gaksoak seemed to regard him as a younger brother, and in all his fights stood by, and if Pau seemed to be getting the worst of it, a shake of Nalegah's massive jaws would turn the tables in his favour. Pau was an expert at slipping his harness, and more than once I have seen him, when he thought no one was watching, go through the operation as methodically as one would take off a coat. Then for a forage for something to eat, but Pau would never get many yards away before Nalegaksoak's deep voice would give notice of the fact, and with two or three jumps he would break some portion 13 SNOWLAND FOLK of his harness, and would be at the side of his friend. I nearly lost Pau also from sickness, but the reviving effect of fresh musk-ox meat, raw, warm, and bloody, such food as he had not tasted for many a weary day, brought back to his keen eyes their former brilliancy, and to his limbs their old strength and agility. Another favourite was Miss Tahwanah, my dog mascot. Early in the winter I had bought her of a good-natured, pigeon-toed Eskimo for a jack-knife, and when, after he had gone, I went to feed her, I found she had but one good eye. At first she was as wild as a hunted fox, and whenever I went near her would disappear in the burrow in the snow which formed her shelter from the biting winds. After a time she became less timid, would take food from my hand, and when, early in the spring, she became the mother of nine little puppies, and was brought with her babies into the en- closure about the house, where they would be better sheltered, she became as gentle as any pet dog. NALEGAKSOAK THE KING In a Storm on the " Great Ice " Miss Tahivanah, Nalegaksoak, Lion, and Pau Her affection for me in particular seemed un- bounded. Day after day during the march across the " Great Ice " no motion of mine escaped her one eye, and when, after a rest, I picked up the little guidon and started forward again, her sharp yelp and vigorous struggles to follow me were the signal that brought every other dog to his feet and down to his work. IS SNOWLAND FOLK Poor Tahwanah ! It was one of the bluest days of the white journey when, after eating one of the harnesses, she sickened, and the bright eye no longer recognized me, and her tongue no longer had strength to reach my hand. Lion, the long-maned white leader of my team before I bought Nalegaksoak, was always the veteran sledge-dog and team leader when at work. He was, I think, the toughest of all my dogs. Never did he get tangled in his traces^ never did I know him to attempt to eat his harness j never but once did I know him to be out of his harness, and that single instance was •over the body of a musk-ox^ but his bump of affection was not largely developed. Another favourite was Panikpa, or "the good little boy," as we called him, from the bright, expectant, good-little-boy-and-just-had-his-face- washed attitude in which he used to sit up and wait for his lump of meat or pemmican. i6 THE STORY OF A GUIDON a I am a guidon, a silken guidon with a blazing golden Stan I am frayed and faded by furious winds and blind- ing sunlight, but L have seen sights that eyes never saw be- fore„ I have seen the bright stars glitter through the freezing darkness day and night for months, with never a ray of blessed sunlight to dim their lustre, and I have seen the glorious sun roll round the white horizon night and day for weeks without ever hiding his yellow face. All this and more have I seen in the far North. My first recollection is one Christmas, in a tiny room lined with warm red blankets, far up in the land of eternal ice and snow. I was a Christmas present from a woman to her hus- band, and I with a good dinner was all the Christmas there was at the little house ; for old Santa Claus had gone south several days before 17 The Maker of the Guidon THE STORY OF A GUIDON to call on the little folks at home. Then I heard that Santa was not on very good terms with the people in the little house j for the man while out hunting had shot one of the reindeer of Santa's team, and though he was very sorry and his wife offered to give Santa her big New- foundland dog, Jack — who had been trained to pull a sleigh — to take the deer's place, Santa would n't have him, and never quite forgave the accident. After the Christmas dinner, I was hung up in the opening between two silken flags which curtained off a bed at one end of the little room, and there I hung for weeks. During all this time no ray of daylight ever came through the windows. Sometimes I saw a star twinkling through the window, and some- times great snow-covered mountains bathed in bright moonlight. At other times the little house trembled with the fury of the storms, and for days at a time I heard the muffled roar of the wind and snow whirling in blinding drifts over the roof. In the little room it was warm ^ ^9 SNOWLAND FOLK but that it was bitter cold outside I knew, be- cause when the man and his wife came in from their snowshoe tramps their eyebrows and eye- lashes would have little icicles on them, and his beard would be such a solid mass of ice that he would have to hold his face in a basin of hot water to thaw it off. One day I heard a strange chattering in the other room of the house, and then a wild dark face in a fur hood looked through the door j then its owner came in, and two or three others followed. At first I was afraid of these strange creatures with their black eyes, long hair, and clothes of the skins of reindeer and foxes and shaggy bears, which made them look as broad as they were tall ; but I soon got over this when I saw how merry they were. It must have been at least six weeks after Christmas that I noticed through the window at noon a sort of twilight, and then I heard them saying that the sun was coming back. Then one May day I was taken down, and there were tears in the woman's eyes as the 20 THE STORY OF A GUIDON " / waved and rustled in the Wind " Kapitansoak put me in his bosom j for he was going away to be gone for months on the long white journey to the north about which he had talked so much. It must have been several days after this that he took me out and fastened me to a bamboo staff which he planted in the snow. I found myself on the great ice-cap. No mountain-tops could be seen, only an unbroken white snow- plain in every direction. The sun shone brightly, and near me were sixteen great dogs fastened to stakes driven in the snow, and four sledges, and 21 SNOWLAND FOLK " Day after Day we journeyed Northward " three men, besides the Kapitansoak, all dressed in furs. I saw that it was a camp, and that prep- arations were being made for the evening meal. When this was cooked and eaten each of the men fastened his clothes tightly about him, and lay down behind his sledge to sleep. The Kapitansoak lay down beneath me, and all the time while they slept, I waved and rustled in the wind and watched the weather, to warn them by a louder whisper of coming storms. From that time on for nearly a hundred days I never slept, and the great sun moved ceaselessly around the sky, never once hiding his face below the horizon. 22 THE STORY OF A GUIDON Day after day we journeyed northward over the white desert, he and I always in advance, traveUing straight as the flight of an arrow, and the dog-sledges following in our tracks. At first I was afraid of the dogs, and feared that if I should fall down or the wind blow me over some of them would eat me. They were such big savage brutes, with such long white teeth, and they fought with one another like wolves. But they all loved the Kapitansoak, because he always fed them himself, and fixed their har- nesses if they did not fit, and I used to like to see them crowd around him and rub against his legs when he came in the morning to untangle them. Then he would pat their heads and rub their chins till they would jump up on him, with low growls of dog satisfaction, until I could hardly believe that these same dogs had fought and killed many a fierce white bear, — "the tiger of the north." After a time I got to know them all : Nalegak- soak the King, Pau, Lion, Miss Tahwanah, Panickpa, Merktoshar, Arngodoblaho, and the ^3 SNOWLAND FOLK rest ^ but I liked his team the best — partly because I knew they were the biggest and nicest, partly because they knew me. There was big Nalegaksoak the King, and Pau his black brother. Miss Tahwanah, a dog with one eye (but that eye was always on the lookout for him), and the two Panickpas. They soon got acquainted with me, and learned to know me. When the Kapitansoak took me in his hand and started off, they tugged at their traces until the sledge started j then they pulled steadily along at his heels. Sometimes after a long march they would get a little tired ; but when he stood me in the snow, and turning round would call, " Come on, boys ; huk, huk, huk, nannook, nannook," how they would yelp and growl and come hurrying up until they could lick his hands, and then lie down about me ! Nalegak- soak and Pau used to jump up at me, and try to play with me as I fluttered in the wind ^ and after a time I learned a little of their language, and used to hear them talking about their bear fights, and wondering where he was taking them. ^4 THE STORY OF A GUIDON " Nalegaksoak and Pau used to play with me " Sometimes I could just see the tops of great mountains, miles and miles away, and sometimes there were huge blue chasms in the ice, around which we had to go. Sometimes there were terrible storms, when for two or three days neither the Kapitansoak nor his companion could get out of their burrow in the snow, and the furious wind shook me ^5 SNOWLAND FOLK till I ached, and the rushing white river of snow below me made me dizzy. At last we came to a strange northern land, and if I should tell you all the wonderful things I saw there, it would take a book. How the Kapitansoak shot the black musk-oxen, and how the brave dogs feasted on their meat till they could eat no more ; how we saw birds and flowers and butterflies ; and how at last we came out on a high cliff far up the east coast of Greenland ^ and how he put me up on a pile of stones and let me look out over the frozen Arctic Ocean, which no eyes had ever seen before ; then how we returned across the desert of snow ; and at last he gave me back into the hands of the woman who made me, and here I am. But I shall never forget how for weeks I laughed and whispered at the yellow sun across the frozen waves of the << Great Ice." 26 KOODLOOKTOO and the WHITE OWL My acquaintance with Koodlooktoo began when he was two years old. One stormy November day he and his mother and step-father came to RedchfFe house from their soUtary stone hut up towards wild Cape Alexander, where they were living nearer to the Pole than any other human beings. A hungry white bear had visited them", eaten much of their meat, and killed one of their dogs, and they were afraid he would come back after them. It was a bitter cold day; the sun had been gone for weeks ; the wind was blowing and the snow flying, and Nipsangwah (that was his name then) was just a round ball in his fur clothes. He was very much afraid of the white man's strange house \ but the warm stove to which his mother held his little cold hands seemed good to him, and he made no outcry. His mother told me that, only a few months before, his father had speared a walrus on the 2-7 Opiksoak^ the Great White Owl After a dra-wing by Albert Operti KOODLOOKTOO and the WHITE OWL ice, and the wounded animal had dragged him into the water and drowned him. Megipsu, his mother, was a very good seam- stress, and I gave her a thimble and needle, and she stayed with us to make our fur clothing. So I got to know Nipsangwah very well. Two years later, when I came back with my ship, Nipsangwah's mother was dying, and when they carried her all wrapped in skins up the hillside and covered her with stones, Nipsang- wah, sobbing till it seemed his little heart would break, became Koodlooktoo, which is Eskimo for orphan. I pitied the little fellow, and kept him as much as I could about my house and on my ship, where I knew he would have enough to eat. I remember how at Anniversary Lodge one day he was dressed up in some of the white men's clothes, and made the most comical little figure of the effect of civilization upon the Eskimo. So it was that he was on the ship when we went to get the great meteorite, or "star-stone," and here he became great friends with AH-NI-GHI'-TO. 29 Koodlooktoo KOODLOOKTOO and the WHITE OWL On this ship was a party of gentlemen who came to study and learn about the Eskimo, the glaciers, and the animals and birds of. the Snow- land. One of them wanted to get a White or Arctic owl. Koodlooktoo, who knew the feed- ing places of the Arctic fox and hare, and the nesting places of the eider ducks and other birds, was promised a jack-knife if he would bring an Arctic owl to the professor. Among the tribe was a good-natured Eskimo, Kessuh, nicknamed the " smiler," whose little boy Mene afterwards came to the United States. Mene and Koodlooktoo were chums. Mene, like Koodlooktoo, had lost his mother. The prom- ise of the jack-knife to Koodlooktoo made volunteers of many of the other boys to go with him. They started up the steep slope of the mountain on Meteorite Island, along the glacier-top,- up and down ravines, over masses of beautiful blue ice, winding in and about the gray lichen-covered rocks. A gerfalcon flew over their heads in the direction of the mountain which marks the centre of the island, on which 31 SNOWLAND FOLK fell the star-stone that in ages gone by furnished the natives with iron for their knives and spears and arrow-heads. Onward the Eskimos moved, Koodlooktoo leading. Many were their tumbles and slides in their efforts to reach the mountain be- fore them, towards which the falcon had flown. While Kood- looktoo and his companions are nearing the moun- tain, you must know that among the gentlemen on the ship was an artist, who came to paint pictures of the Eskimo, the ice- bergs, and other things. The artist was a funny little bald-headed man with a very long nose. He knew some funny tricks, danced and sang songs for the Eskimos, and was always painting and sketching them, and he and Kessuh had 3^ " Kessuh the Smiler ' KOODLOOKTOO and the WHITE OWL A Tufi become great friends. Koodlooktoo had reached the patch of red snow which lay almost at the base of the high peak, when on the shore near the mountain he saw a group of men, women, and children, who were dancing up and down and shouting, " Opiksoak, Opiksoak ! " (the big white owl), bursting with laughter and pointing towards a white " tupic," which is a tent shaped like a cone. Koodlooktoo and the youngsters with him, hearing the cry, were bubbling over with joy at the prospect of secur- ing the owl. They soon joined the merry crowd which was running up to the tupic, peep- ing through the seams, and screaming with ^ 33 SNOWLAND FOLK laughter. Koodlooktoo reached the tent first, but instead of the wished-for owl, he saw a little bald-headed man with a very long nose, in a long white shirt down to his heels, a white stocking drawn over his head, and a pair of goggles on his long nose. In the centre of the tent stood Kessuh up to his arms in plaster of Paris, while another man in white overalls was mixing up the soft white powder in pails. The little bald-headed man, who was the artist of the ship, was taking a plaster cast of the native. While this was going on Kessuh, who was oiled over with vaseline, was howling to be let loose, for the heat was beginning to be felt as the plaster set. His companions would look in at the tent every little while and simply roar at the funny sight as he was fast disappearing from view. . As the fine white powder filled the interior of the tent, each man slowly became whitened till he looked like a miller, and the little artist looked for all the world like a white owl. The resemblance to the bird impressed itself so de- cidedly upon the natives that they at once 34 KOODLOOKTOO and the WHITE OWL christened him «' Opiksoak," the name of the Arctic owl. Poor Koodlooktoo, after his long tramp, with only a couple of ship's biscuits to eat, was too tired and disap- pointed to attempt to climb the mountain, so he lay down behind a big rock and went to sleep. Now little Mene had meanwhile heard of the promised knife, and started up the cliff to see if he could capture a real Opik- soak. He had climbed some distance when he saw far above him a gerfalcon, which he knew was waiting for his prey. Mene had. Mene with him his little bow and arrows, which he could use with much skill. Climbing still nearer, and moving cautiously so as to not frighten the bird, he drew his bow and sent the arrow flying 35 SNOWLAND FOLK to the mark and killed the falcon, which tumbled almost at his feet, and proved a very large specimen of its kind. He then found the owl's nest, and hiding himself, awaited the coming of the owl. After a long wait he saw her fly- ing towards him with a bird in her claws, and it was not long before she reached the nest and received the arrow that was sent from Mene's bow. Mene came down the cliff with the two birds, and found Koodlooktoo still fast asleep behind the rock. He laid the white owl by the side of sleeping Koodlooktoo, and then sat down behind the corner of the rock to see what would happen. In a little while Koodlooktoo awoke and could not believe his eyes when he saw the white owl lying beside him. Only after he had picked it up was he sure he was not dreaming. But turning away a moment to look for his mitten, Mene laid the falcon beside the owl, and when Koodlooktoo looked back and saw it there, his joy was changed to fright. " Tor- 36 KOODLOOKTOO and the WHITE OWL narsoak," the Eskimo devil, must be close by ! and jumping to his feet he ran with all his might, till Mene's shouts of laughter stopped him and brought him back. Back to the ship came the two boys, Kood- looktoo with his owl, and Mene with his falcon, and each received a knife and a piece of board \ but Koodlooktoo never heard the last of how he ran away from a dead white owl. Still later Koodlooktoo drove dogs for AH- NI-GHI'-TO, the winter that she and her mother were caught with the ship in the ice at Cape Sabine, and the next year, after they had gone south, he was assistant to Charlie the steward, and brought ice, washed dishes, and slept under the table, and after "Daisy" the musk calf came, went every day to gather grass and willow for her, as you can read in "Children of the Arctic." 37 AN ARCTIC HOME It was the latter part of July, and the wild yet beautiful landscape about McCormick Bay lay soft and dreamy in weather such as only the brilliant Arctic summer can produce. The sun was just rising from the lowest part of its nearly horizontal course above the cliffs. The dark brown and red cliffs on the south shore of the bay shimmered in the yellow light. Down every valley ran the silver ribbon of a murmur- ing brook 5 a deer or two browsed leisurely 5 and flocks of snow-buntings twittered and chirped over the moss-carpeted, flower-besprinkled slopes between the shore and the cliffs, while millions of little auks kept the air alive with their querulous cries and the rapid beat of their whirring wings. All was warmth and light and exuberant life. Only the surface of the bay was still held in the icy fetters of the long winter night. Even it, however, was soon to be free. A broad river 38 The Arctic Home in Summer SNOWLAND FOLK of gleaming water ran close to the shore ^ every glistening berg floated in an open lake in which sported seals, narwhals, and schools of white whales ; and narrow lanes of water ran in every direction through the rotten ice, cutting it into great floes which floated slowly back and forth with the tide. You would never believe that this glowing summer scene was thirty miles farther north than the place where the unfor- tunate yeannette was crushed in the ice. Suddenly a strange apparition came into view around the cape which terminated the line of red cliffs. This apparition floated higher out of the water than the ice-cakes, and was black. A great black cloud trailed from it, and it moved slowly through the rotten ice. It was the steamer Kite^ bearing a little party in search of an Arctic home. Never before had such an apparition appeared in McCormick Bay, though perhaps the great rocks on top of the cliffs three hundred years ago, when their eyes were younger and stronger, might have seen the glint of Baffin's sail as he lay at anchor that 40 AN ARCTIC HOME 1 > ^^ ^ id h "^ ^^^HPE^g^ut- Ir -^ Tj. .J^'