While the white men from Europe occupy the whole eastern coast, pressing
rapidly and steadily westward, the Redskin aborigines maintain a
precarious existence throughout the centre of the continent, from north
to south, and are still found here and there on the western shores. On
the northern ice-bound coast, the skin-clothed Esquimaux wander in small
bands from Behring Strait to Baffin Bay, but never venture far inland,
being kept in check by their hereditary enemies, the Athabascas, the
most northern of the red-skinned nations. The Esquimaux, inhabiting the
Arctic regions, may more properly be described in the volume devoted to
that part of the globe.