The people whose arts and industries are represented by the collection
to be described are the Eskimo of the northwestern extremity of the
continent of North America, who make permanent homes at the two
villages of Nuwŭk and Utkiavwĭñ. Small contributions to the collection
were obtained from natives of Wainwright Inlet and from people of the
Inland River (Nunatañmiun) who visited the northern villages.
Nuwŭk, “the Point,” is situated on a slightly elevated knoll at the
extremity of Point Barrow, in lat. 71° 23´ N., long. 156° 17´ W., and
Utkiavwĭñ, “the Cliffs,” at the beginning of the high land at Cape
Smyth, 11 miles southwest from Nuwŭk. The name Utkiavwĭñ was explained
as meaning “the high place, whence one can look out,” and was said to
be equivalent to ĭkpĭk, a cliff. This name appears on the various maps
of this region under several corrupted forms, due to carelessness or
inability to catch the finer distinctions of sound. It first appears
on Capt. Maguire’s map[N2] as “Ot-ki-a-wing,” a form of the word very
near the Eskimo pronunciation. On Dr. Simpson’s map[N3] it is changed
to “Ot-ke-a-vik,” which on the admiralty chart is misprinted
“Otkiovik.” Petroff on his map[N4] calls it “Ootiwakh,” while he gives
an imaginary village “Ootkaiowik, Arctic Ocean,” of 55 inhabitants, in
his census of the Arctic Division (op. cit., p. 4), which does not
appear upon his map.
[Footnote N2: Parl. Reports, 1854, vol. 42, p. 186.]
[Footnote N3: Further Papers, &c., Parl. Rep. (1855).]
[Footnote N4: Report on the population, etc., of Alaska.]
Our party, I regret to say, is responsible for the name “Ooglaamie” or
“Uglaamie,” which has appeared on many maps since our return. Strictly
speaking this name should be used only as the official name of the
United States signal station. It arose from a misunderstanding of the
name as heard the day after we arrived, and was even adopted by the
natives in talking with us. It was not until the second year that we
learned the correct form of the word, which has been carefully
verified.
The inhabitants of these two villages are so widely separated from
their neighbors--the nearest permanent villages are at Point Belcher
and Wainwright Inlet, 75 miles southwest, and Demarcation Point, 350
miles east[N5]--and so closely connected with each other by
intermarriage and common interests, that they may be considered as a
single people. In their hunting and trading expeditions they
habitually range from the neighborhood of Refuge Inlet along the coast
to Barter Island, going inland to the upper waters of the large rivers
which flow northward into the Arctic Ocean east of Point Barrow. Small
parties occasionally travel as far as Wainwright Inlet and more rarely
to Point Hope, and some times as far as the Mackenzie River. The
extent of their wanderings will be treated of more fully in connection
with their relations to the other natives of the Northwest. They
appear to be unacquainted with the interior except for about 100 miles
south of Point Barrow.
[Footnote N5: Capt. E. E. Smith, who in command of a steam whaler
penetrated as far east as Return Reef in the summer of 1885, says
that the natives told him there was no permanent village west of
Herschel Island.]
The coast from Refuge Inlet runs nearly straight in a generally
northeast direction to Point Barrow, and consists of steep banks of
clay, gravel, and pebbles, in appearance closely resembling glacial
drift, bordered by a narrow, steep beach of pebbles and gravel, and
broken at intervals by steep gulleys which are the channels of
temporary streams running only during the period of melting snow, and
by long, narrow, and shallow lagoons, to whose edges the cliffs slope
gradually down, sometimes ending in low, steep banks. The mouths of
these lagoons are generally rather wide, and closed by a bar of gravel
thrown up by the waves during the season of open water. In the spring,
the snow and ice on the land melt months before the sea opens and
flood the ice on the lagoons, which also melts gradually around the
edges until there is a sufficient head of water in the lagoon to break
through the bar at the lowest point. This stream soon cuts itself a
channel, usually about 20 or 30 yards wide, through which the lagoon
is rapidly drained, soon cutting out an open space of greater or less
extent in the sea ice. Before the sea opens the lagoon is drained down
to its level, and the tide ebbs and flows through the channel, which
is usually from knee-deep to waist-deep, so that the lagoon becomes
more or less brackish. When the sea gets sufficiently open for waves
to break upon the beach, they in a short time bring in enough gravel
to close the outlet. The cliffs gradually decrease in height till they
reach Cape Smyth, where they are about 25 feet high, and terminate in
low knolls sloping down to the banks of the broad lagoon Isûtkwɐ,
which is made by the confluence of two narrow, sinuous gulleys, and is
only 10 feet deep in the deepest part.
Rising from the beach beyond the mouth of this lagoon is a slight
elevation, 12 feet above the sea level, which was anciently the site
of a small village, called by the same name as the lagoon. On this
elevation was situated the United States signal station of Ooglaamie.
Beyond this the land is level with the top of the beach, which is
broad and nearly flat, raised into a slight ridge on the outer edge.
About half a mile from the station, just at the edge of the beach, is
the small lagoon Imérnyɐ, about 200 yards in diameter, and nearly
filled up with marsh. From this point the land slopes down to Elson
Bay, a shallow body of water inclosed by the sandspit which forms
Point Barrow. This is a continuation of the line of the beach, varying
in breadth from 200 to 600 yards and running northeast for 5 miles,
then turning sharply to the east-southeast and running out in a narrow
gravel spit, 2 miles long, which is continued eastward by a chain of
narrow, low, sandy islands, which extend as far as Point Tangent. At
the angle of the point the land is slightly elevated into irregular
turf-covered knolls, on which the village of Nuwŭk is situated. At
various points along the beach are heaps of gravel, sometimes 5 or 6
feet in height, which are raised by the ice. Masses of old ice,
bearing large quantities of gravel, are pushed up on the beach during
severe storms and melt rapidly in the summer, depositing their load of
gravel and pebbles in a heap. These masses are often pushed up out of
reach of the waves, so that the heaps of gravel are left thenceforth
undisturbed.
Between Imernyɐ and Elson Bay (Tă´syûk) is a series of large shallow
lagoons, nearly circular and close to the beach, which rises in a
regular sea-wall. All have low steep banks on the land side, bordered
with a narrow beach. The first of these, I´kpĭlĭñ (“that which has
high banks”), breaks out in the spring through a narrow channel in the
beach in the manner already described, and is salt or brackish. The
next is fresh and connected with I´kpĭlĭñ by a small stream running
along behind the beach. It is called Sĭ´n-nyû, and receives a rivulet
from a small fresh-water lake 3 or 4 miles inland. The third, Imê´kpûñ
(“great water”), is also fresh, and has neither tributary nor outlet.
The fourth, Imêkpû´niglu, is brackish, and empties into Elson Bay by a
small stream. Between this stream and the beach is a little
fresh-water pond close to the bend of Elson Bay, which is called
Kĭkyûktă´ktoro, from one or two little islands (kĭkyû´ktɐ) near one
end of it.
Back from the shore the land is but slightly elevated, and is marshy
and interspersed with many small lakes and ponds, sometimes connected
by inconsiderable streams. This marsh passes gradually into a somewhat
higher and drier rolling plain, stretching back inland from the cliffs
and growing gradually higher to the south. Dr. Simpson, on the
authority of the Point Barrow natives, describes the country as
“uniformly low, and full of small lakes or pools of fresh water to a
distance of about 50 miles from the north shore, where the surface
becomes undulating and hilly, and, farther south, mountainous.”[N6]
This description has been substantially verified by Lieut. Ray’s
explorations. South of the usual deer-hunting ground of the natives he
found the land decidedly broken and hilly, and rising gradually to a
considerable range of mountains, running approximately east and west,
which could be seen from the farthest point he reached.[N7]
[Footnote N6: Arctic papers, p. 233.]
[Footnote N7: Report U.S. International Polar Expedition to Point
Barrow, p. 28.]
The natives also speak of high rocky land “a long way off to the
east,” which some of them have visited for the purpose of hunting the
mountain sheep. The low rolling plain in the immediate vicinity of
Point Barrow, which is all of the country that could be visited by our
party when the land was clear of snow, presents the general appearance
of a country overspread with glacial drift. The landscape is
strikingly like the rolling drift hills of Cape Cod, and this
resemblance is increased by the absence of trees and the occurrence of
ponds in all the depressions. There are no rocks in situ visible in
this region, and large bowlders are absent, while pebbles larger than
the fist are rare. The surface of the ground is covered with a thin
soil, supporting a rather sparse vegetation of grass, flowering
plants, creeping willows, and mosses, which is thicker on the higher
hillsides and forms a layer of turf about a foot thick. Large tracts
of comparatively level ground are almost bare of grass, and consist of
irregular hummocks of black, muddy soil, scantily covered with
light-colored lichens and full of small pools. The lowlands,
especially those back of the beach lagoons, are marshes, thickly
covered with grass and sphagnum. The whole surface of the land is
exceedingly wet in summer, except the higher knolls and hillsides, and
for about 100 yards back from the edge of the cliffs. The thawing,
however, extends down only about a foot or eighteen inches. Beyond
this depth the ground is perpetually frozen for an unknown distance.
There are no streams of any importance in the immediate neighborhood
of Point Barrow. On the other hand, three of the rivers emptying into
the Arctic Ocean between Point Barrow and the Colville, which Dr.
Simpson speaks of as “small and hardly known except to persons who
have visited them,”[N8] have been found to be considerable streams.
Two of these were visited by Lieut. Ray in his exploring trips in 1882
and 1883. The first, Kua´ru, is reached after traveling about 50 miles
from Point Barrow in a southerly direction. It has been traced only
for a small part of its course, and there is reason to believe, from
what the natives say, that it is a tributary of the second named
river. Lieut. Ray visited the upper part of the second river, Kulugrua
(named by him “Meade River”), in March, 1882, when he went out to join
the native deer hunters encamped on its banks, just on the edge of the
hilly country. On his return he visited what the natives assured him
was the mouth of this river, and obtained observations for its
geographical position. Early in April, 1883, he again visited the
upper portion of the stream, and traced it back some distance into the
hilly country. The intermediate portion has never been surveyed. At
the time of each of his visits the river was, of course, frozen and
the ground covered with snow, but he was able to see that the river
was of considerable size, upwards of 200 yards wide where he first
reached it, about 60 miles from its mouth, and showing evidences of a
large volume of water in the spring. It receives several tributaries.
(See maps, Pls. I and II.)
[Footnote N8: Op. cit., p. 235.]
The third river is known only by hearsay from the natives. It is
called Ĭ´kpĭkpûñ (Great Cliff), and is about 40 miles (estimated from
day’s journeys) east of Kulu´grua. It is described as being a larger
and more rapid stream than the other two, and so deep that it does not
freeze down to the bottom on the shallow bars, as they say Kulu´grua
does. Not far from its mouth it is said to receive a tributary from
the east flowing out of a great lake of fresh water, called Tă´syûkpûñ
(Great Lake.) This lake is separated from the sea by a comparatively
narrow strip of land, and is so large that a man standing on the
northern shore can not see the “very high” land on the southern. It
takes an umiak a day to travel the length of the lake under sail with
a fair wind, and when the Nunatañmiun coming from the south first saw
the lake they said “Taxaio!” (the sea).
On Capt. Maguire’s map[N9] this lake is laid down by the name
“Taso´kpoh” “from native report.” It is represented as lying between
Smith Bay and Harrison Bay, and connected with each by a stream.
Maguire seems to have heard nothing of Ikpikpûñ. This lake is not
mentioned in the body of the report. Dr. Simpson, however,[N10] speaks
of it in the following words: “They [i.e., the trading parties when
they reach Smith Bay] enter a river which conducts them to a lake, or
rather series of lakes, and descend another stream which joins the sea
in Harrison Bay.” They are well acquainted with the Colville River,
which in their intercourse with us they usually called “the river at
Nĭ´galĕk,” Nĭ´galĕk being the well known name of the trading camp at
the mouth. It was also sometimes spoken of as the “river of the
Nunatañmiun.” The Mackenzie River is known as “Kupûñ” (great river).
We found them also acquainted with the large unexplored river called
“Kok” on the maps, which flows into Wainwright Inlet. They called it
“Ku” (the river). The river “Cogrua,” which is laid down on the charts
as emptying into Peard Bay, was never mentioned by the Point Barrow
natives, but we were informed by Capt. Gifford, of the whaler _Daniel
Webster_, who traveled along the coast from Point Barrow to Cape
Lisburne after the loss of his vessel in 1881, that it is quite a
considerable stream. He had to ascend it for about a day’s journey--20
miles, according to Capt. Hooper[N11]--before he found it shallow
enough to ford.
[Footnote N9: Parl. Rop., 1854, vol. 42, opp. p. 186.]
[Footnote N10: Op. cit., p. 265.]
[Footnote N11: Corwin Report, p. 72.]