ESKIMO VISITORS
Our Visitors Leave for their Homes—Departure of a Party to Build a
Stone Hut in Tooktoo Valley—Arrival of the Most Northerly Family in
the World—The Last Hunting-party of the Season Goes to Five-Glacier
Valley—Still the Natives Come—Mama’s Birthday—Finishing Touches to
our Winter Quarters—Eclipse of the Moon—Beginning of the Winter
Routine—Matt Installed as Cook—Thanksgiving.
Wednesday, October 28. Yesterday Nowdingyah and his piccaninny, a little
girl about two and a half years old, put in their appearance. The child
was nicely dressed in a blue-fox “kapetah” (overcoat) and seal cap
trimmed with fox, but she was not as pretty as Kayunah’s little one. I
gave her a looking-glass, too, which amused her father as much as it did
the child. After supper Mr. Peary brought out his reading-glass, and
Arrotochsuah’s wife immediately said she had seen a white man have one
at the northern settlement of Etah, and she showed us how he had used it
as a burning-glass. We are all curious to know what party of white men
she had seen. The whole evening till midnight was spent in taking
flashlight photographs of the Eskimos and ethnological measurements of
Kayunah.
Our Eskimo visitors left for their homes this morning. At noon the boys,
with Dr. Cook in charge, started for Five-Glacier Valley to hunt
reindeer and to bring the cached venison down to the edge of the ice,
where Ikwa will call for it in a few days and bring it back on the
sledge. The boys will then proceed to the head of the bay, and under Dr.
Cook’s direction build a stone igloo for the use of the inland ice-party
next spring. About three o’clock Matt returned for a tin of biscuits
which had been forgotten, and informed us that Verhoeff had frozen his
nose and face severely, and that Astrup’s cheeks had also been nipped.
The temperature was –10°, and a fresh southeaster was blowing across the
bay. Ikwa and Mané came in this afternoon and added quite a number of
words to our Eskimo vocabulary; the former also gave us an account of
the murder of his father by tattooed natives while out after bear off
Saunders Island.
Saturday, October 31. Ikwa started this morning with the sledge and dogs
for Arrotochsuah’s igloo, where he expects to get a load of hay. About 2
P. M., while we were out, Mr. Peary shoveling snow against the wall, we
saw a dark object on the ice, and with the aid of the glass made out a
sledge and two people, but they did not seem to get any nearer, and in a
short time disappeared. About six they arrived—Annowkah, his wife
M’gipsu, and an awful-looking baby of about two months. They came from
Nerki, a place beyond Arrotochsuah’s, two days’ journey from Redcliffe.
They are cleaner and more intelligent-looking than any natives we have
yet seen. In conversation we discovered that they were the most
northerly family of Greenland, and consequently of the globe.
Mr. Peary and I are having great times keeping house by ourselves; he
brings in the snow for water, the coal and coal-oil, and keeps watch
during the night, while I cook, wash dishes, sweep (without a broom—the
only article of importance that was overlooked in the preparations for
our Arctic journey), and look after Mané, who is here with her two
children working on the reindeer skins. We shall not be sorry when the
boys return and take some of these duties off our shoulders.
[Illustration:
Prepared for Winter.—My South Window.
]
Thursday, November 5. Jack is the father of eight jet-black pups. The
days are only a few hours long now, but the darkness is not yet the
darkness of a winter night at home. Mr. Peary’s leg is improving
steadily, and he seems more like himself. The strain has told on both of
us, and I am glad it is over. He put up his writing-desk yesterday, and
our room is almost fixed for the winter, and looks very cozy. We have
been busy putting up the rest of the blankets in our room, and have
closed the side window and one half of the end window. As daylight has
almost entirely departed this will make no difference in the amount of
our illumination, and the room will be much warmer, although thus far we
have had no cause to complain, the thermometer not having registered
below 16° at any time.
Our house is by no means a palace, nor do its interior fixings even
remotely suggest luxury. We have two rooms, the smaller of which,
measuring twelve feet by seven and a half, has been reserved for Mr.
Peary and myself, while the larger, of not quite double the size, is
used as the general “living-room,” besides affording sleeping-quarters
to the boys. A dining or “mess” table, a few rude chairs, a bookcase,
and the “bunks” built to the east wall, constitute the furniture, of
which it can in truth be said there is no superabundance. The red
blanketing which has been tacked all over the inside walls and the
ceiling, seven feet overhead, imparts a warm feeling to the interior,
and relieves what would otherwise be a cheerless expanse of boards and
tar paper. Our stove in the partition-wall between the two rooms is so
placed as to give a goodly supply of heat to the lowest stratum of the
atmosphere.
The shell of the house is made of inch boards, lined inside and outside
with two-ply and three-ply tarred paper, which is made to fit as nearly
air-tight as possible. To the inside of the ten-inch rafters and posts
we have nailed a lining of heavy cardboard, which forms a support to the
blanketing, besides making a complete inner shell of its own. Between
the two shells there is free air space, which will greatly help to
retain the warmth in the rooms.
A stone wall has been built around the house four feet away from it, and
on it we shall store our boxes of provisions, and then stretch a canvas
cover over to the roof of the house. Our corridor will thus be sheltered
as well as the house, and even in the most inclement weather we shall be
able to breathe pure air and have outdoor exercise. With the first heavy
snow everything will be plastered over with this natural fleece, and
cold though it may be on the outside, we hope to keep quite comfortable
within.
Saturday, November 7. To-day has been reception day. We have to-night
seventeen huskies in our camp, and I don’t know how many dogs; if I were
to judge by the howling and yelping, I should say at least fifty. I have
been under the weather for the last two days, but feel better to-night.
Sunday, November 8. We generally devote Sunday to sleep; the boys,
except the watchman, turn in right after breakfast and sleep till lunch.
We have a cold supper, which saves me the trouble of cooking Sunday
afternoon. We usually have pemmican and cranberry sauce, salmon, hot
biscuits, chocolate, and fruit. Arrotochsuah and his family moved into a
snow-igloo to-day.
Monday, November 9. Mama’s birthday. My thoughts have been at home and
with her all day, and I am sure she has thought of me. I do not even
know where she is. In my mind I have seen sister Mayde at work on
something mysterious for the past week. I must try to put my mind on
something else or I shall have a spell of homesickness. I placed a
bamboo pole across the front of our bed and draped the two United States
flags (one belonging to the National Geographical Society of Washington,
and the other to the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences) _à la
portière_ across the front; then on the wall just beside my place I have
hung the photographs of my dear ones.
[Illustration:
Frank.
]
Saturday, November 14. Very little worthy of note has happened this
week. My daily routine is always the same; I take my coffee in bed, then
get lunch for my family, take a walk afterward, usually with Mr. Peary,
then sew or read, and at four o’clock begin to get dinner. Last Thursday
Gibson initiated Frank into dragging a load of ice from the berg to the
house. Yesterday was lovely and clear, and the full moon which we have
throughout the twenty-four hours, made it as bright as day. Our walk
to-day was to the berg, a mile distant (as measured by our newly
finished odometer wheel), and return—the first long walk Mr. Peary has
taken; his leg did not feel any worse for the trip, but was considerably
more swollen at night. Frank to-day for the first time behaved very well
in hauling ice.
Sunday, November 15. This has been a lovely day. How much I should like
to take a peep at the home folks! To-night we have had the eclipse of
the moon. It was first noticed about 7.30, and Mr. Peary watched it
carefully, making observations with his transit and chronometer. About
nine o’clock Arrotochsuah arrived from Netchiolumy,[3] on Barden Bay,
accompanied by one of his sons and another young man. The first we
immediately nicknamed the “Smiler,” and the other the “Villain,” owing
to the expressions on their faces.
Footnote 3:
Erroneously called by most geographers Ittiblu.
Tuesday, November 17. Yesterday was an exceptionally fine day,
beautifully moonlit. The “Villain” of Netchiolumy has a sledge made of
the boards which Dr. Cook traded for a tupic when the “Kite” stopped at
the settlement in July. This morning Ikwa introduced a rather
clean-looking native from Omanooy, a place this side of Akpani, on
Saunders Island; his name is Kioppadu. Our sewing progresses slowly,
Arrotochsuah’s wife, whom we had installed as seamstress, being too old
to prepare the skins by the time-honored native method of chewing. Matt
got supper to-night, and will from now until May I prepare all the meals
under my supervision. This gives me more time to myself, besides not
confining me to the house. It was no easy task for me to cook for six
boys, and for such appetites.
Thursday, November 19. We have had our first real winter snow-storm
to-day. The wind whistled, and the snow was driven into every crack and
crevice. Just before noon Kayunah and family came; Makzangwa, his wife,
is going to chew skins for us. They will live in the snow-igloo, having
brought all their household effects with them; these consist of the
soapstone blubber lamp or stove, a reindeer skin as a coverlet for the
bed (which is merely a bundle of hay on some pieces of board given them
by us), a few rabbit and gull skins for wraps for the feet, and a
sealskin to put against the wall behind the bed. When these articles are
put inside the igloo, their house is furnished.
Saturday, November 21. A clear day; the stars are twinkling and the air
is delightful, but one must exercise to keep warm. Since Matt does the
cooking, I take long walks every day, and find them very agreeable. We
had a general house-cleaning to-day, and will have it now every
Saturday. We have been obliged to dismiss the Eskimos from the
living-room during meal-time, as their odor is too offensive.
Sunday, November 22. Kayunah came in this morning, and said that our
coffee and biscuit made his family sick, and as they had no more seal
meat they must go home. Mr. Peary gave them permission to help
themselves to the walrus stacked up behind our house, and the Eskimo was
satisfied. Ikwa and Kyo (Kioppadu) have gone over to the settlement of
Igloodahominy, on Robertson Bay, after blue foxes.
Monday, November 23. It grows gradually darker every day. To-day at noon
it was impossible to read ordinary print by daylight. Mr. Verhoeff went
on the cliffs to look at his thermometer, and found that it read higher
than those at Redcliffe. Ikwa and his brother returned about noon
without foxes or game of any kind. We had a faint aurora this evening.
On the whole I am very much disappointed in the auroras; I thought we
should have very beautiful displays in the Arctic regions, but it seems
that we are too far north of the magnetic pole.
Wednesday, November 25. The days are rather unsatisfactory, although I
keep busy all day sewing, mending, rearranging my room, etc. When I sum
up at bedtime what I have accomplished, it is very little. Mr. Peary and
the boys are busily at work on some test sledges. This afternoon
Annowkah and M’gipsu returned, bringing with them a twelve-year-old
girl, named Tookymingwah, whose father was dragged under the ice and
drowned a few weeks ago by an infuriated “oogzook” seal (_Phoca
barbata?_) which he had harpooned. She has a mother and two sisters, who
will be here soon.
Mr. Peary issued the Thanksgiving proclamation, and I have been busy
getting things ready for the Thanksgiving dinner, which I told Matt I
would prepare. Our cooking and baking is all done on oil-stoves; since I
have only three ovens I baked my pies to-day, as I shall need all the
stoves and ovens to-morrow. This forenoon I went out to our berg,
accompanied by Mr. Peary and my two Newfoundland dogs, after a load of
ice. It is rather a novel idea to me, chopping ice from the stately
icebergs and melting it for drinking and cooking purposes.
Thursday, November 26. Thanksgiving day, and all work is suspended.
Before lunch I went down to Cape Cleveland with Mr. Peary to see how
much daylight still remains toward the south. The sky was tinged with
rose near the southern horizon, and the moon was just coming up from
behind Northumberland Island. How strange it is that while we have no
sunlight whatever, we know that at home they are having day and night
just as usual! The temperature was 12½° F. Dinner was served at 7 P. M.
All the boys wore American clothing, and the room was draped with the
Stars and Stripes.