THE SEALING GROUNDS
The day’s work in an Eskimo village (i.e., permanent winter quarters),
is full and varied, and quite regular. It is a busy life they lead,
both men and women, marked by all sorts of skilled activities; by
intervals of neighbourly recreation and gossip; by the excitement and
stir of the hunters’ return from sealing or bear hunting; and by
wonderfully cheery, cosy, hospitable orgies of eating in the evening,
when everyone is getting dry and warm and replete for the night.
The hunters start out early in the morning, after a hasty meal of raw
flesh and a drink of water, accompanied by their sons and the dogs,
four or five in number, harnessed to a light sled loaded with lines and
harpoons, or whatever implements may be needed for the proposed chase.
The team starts out in a fine tear, urged by shouting and the cracking
of whips, and off they all race, men and dogs together, to the sealing
grounds out on the frozen sea, or inland for deer. The stars serve as a
compass, or in thick weather the wind will be sufficient guide.
No food is borne on the sled, for the hunter depends upon himself for
his dinner. The duty of the boys is to watch the sled, to mind the
dogs, and see they do not fight or stampede, to study the conditions of
the ice, the signs of the weather, the habits of animals, to note their
calls and movements and how to imitate them, to take careful notice of
the topography of the country and make mental drawings of it to serve
as charts and maps, to read the stars, and, generally to endeavour to
become skilled and successful hunters themselves.
They arrive at the sealing ground as the winter day breaks, and
immediately start the search for a seal hole; for upon the finding of
this depends the comfort and sustenance of the whole family for days to
come, and the succour of the families of anybody else who may not be in
luck, but who may return home, cheery as ever, but empty handed.
All around as far as the eye can see is a vast, white expanse, utterly
featureless and monotonous save for an occasional iceberg or a ridge of
hummocky ice. Behind is the white line of the broken coast; ahead is a
dark mist, marking the floe edge and the open sea; and above all, the
twilight sky, darker than the drear white world, of the Arctic winter.
To a European, the effect of such a scene is crushing in its
melancholic immensity, its frozen immobility and silence. Not so to the
native. He remains irrepressibly cheerful, his whole soul preoccupied
with the necessities of his larder, buoyed up with the hope and the
tireless patience of the sealer. He goes searching for his blow hole.
The slight indication for which his practised eye is scanning every
foot of the ice is a faintly rounded bump with a small opening in it no
bigger than a shilling. As soon as he catches sight of one of these he
is reassured, and prepares to wait—quite indefinitely, and perfectly
still—for what must presently happen.
The seal is a warm-blooded creature, whose need of air to breathe is
urgent and frequent. As soon as the sea begins to freeze, the animal
takes precautions against being imprisoned and drowned under the ice.
It makes a series of breathing holes over the whole area of its feeding
ground below. If one or another of these freezes over again, there are
the rest; or if an enemy is encountered at one hole, it can have
recourse to another. The seal comes methodically after feeding to each
blow hole in turn, and keeps it open by scratching away any newly
formed ice threatening to close it up. It puts its nose to the opening
and breathes long, deeply, and luxuriously, before diving once more.
The hunter knows every move in the game.
Having discovered a seal hole, he provides himself with a block of snow
to sit upon, and prepares for a lengthy wait. He takes up his patient
station facing the wind (for the seal has the keenest scent, and the
Eskimo is, to say the least of it, somewhat smelly), thrusts his feet
and legs into a deerskin bag, tucks his hands into the sleeves of his
jacket, lays his spear across his knees, and watches—it may be for
hours—motionless as a rock, for sound travels under the ice and the
prey must not be warned. A sealer will wait all day and all night, if
need be, at the blow hole. If he should fall asleep, he runs the risk
of being maimed for life with frostbite.
Presently he hears the expected scratching, and the scraping of the
paws of a seal coming up to breathe. Silently he prepares for action.
Now is the critical time. First, there comes the expulsion of the foul
air long pent in the animal’s lungs; but not yet dare the watcher make
the slightest sign. The seal withdraws its head and listens intently
for a possible foe. Reassured after a few moments, it again approaches
the hole with the little dome of snow and, putting its head well up,
takes a long, reviving breath. This is the hunter’s moment. His hand
slips to his spear (his fur garments making no sound), grips it, and
poises it with unerring aim. With one swift downward thrust, the weapon
is through the blow hole and its barb buried deep in the neck of the
seal. When the eye is true and quick the stroke is seldom missed. The
animal immediately dives, taking out the barb and line. The Eskimo seal
spear has a movable head or barb, which is attached to the shaft in
such a way that it becomes detached from it the moment an animal is
struck, and remains firmly embedded in the flesh with the long line of
white whale hide attached, while the spear itself floats on the water
or falls on the ice as the case may be. The hunter instantly recovers
this shaft, and now the butt comes into play. The hole is quickly
enlarged and the prey hauled up and killed, there on the ice, with one
quick stroke.
It is but the work of a few minutes for the dog team (which had been
driven away back from the hole as soon as it was discovered), to come
racing up. A shout summons every other hunter within sight, and quicker
than it takes to tell, there is a concourse of fur-clad figures, the
seal is cut open, and a rib, dripping with the fresh, hot blood, is
presented to each by way of an invigorating snack. The carcase is soon
skewered together again by means of the long ivory pins carried by the
hunter, and loaded on to the sled, when the successful “outfit,”
bidding a cheery adieu to the others, strikes off then and there for
home, rejoicing in the thought of fresh supplies of meat and blubber,
and another skin added to the family stores.
When the sealing season fully sets in, sealing camps are formed far out
on the ice at sea, over the sealing grounds, and thither the younger
half of the entire Eskimo community resorts for a month or more. A new,
roughly fashioned, temporary village quickly springs up, and all the
usual household goods are installed in readiness for the season’s work
on the spot. The camp igloos are much smaller and less ambitious
dwellings than those on shore, their sole object being to provide a few
weeks’ shelter. There is none of the home life of the permanent
village. The men and boys are away all day long, and the women spend
all their time preparing and drying the skins and keeping the cooking
pot going. Water is obtained either from the snow lying deep on the
surface of the ice, or from ice from the nearest berg. From early
morning till late at night the camp resounds with the crack of whips,
the shouts of the dog-team drivers, the gruff voices of men and the
shrill voices of boys, as they drive hither and thither, quartering the
expanse of the sealing grounds in search of the blow holes. Every foot
of the way is closely scanned. Suddenly a deep “Ugh!” from the hunter
announces the saucer-like depression in the snow which tells him that a
seal cavern is beneath.
Here and there a solitary sportsman with but one dog on a long line
sets out on his own, over the sealing ground. He trudges observantly
along, urging the dog to ferret about and pick up the scent of the
quarry beneath the snow. “White Fang,” nothing loth, sets all his
sharp, trained wits to work, and presently starts snuffling and
scratching, like any terrier at a rat hole, and the hunter knows he has
come upon his prey.
To understand the activities of the sealing camp it is necessary to
know something of the habits of the seal in the breeding season. For
some time before the baby creature is born, for instance, the mother
has been preparing a house for it. She does not give birth in the water
nor on the surface of the snow, for the obvious reasons of the cold and
of the possible presence of enemies. She makes a hole in the sea ice
big enough for her to get through, and proceeds to scrabble out an airy
cavern in the deep layer of snow above, leaving a sort of shelf or
flooring of clear ice upon which she can lie in safety and bring her
young to birth. This place is—comparatively—warm, dry, and even cosy.
It is within immediate reach of the hole through which she can dive
back into the water at a moment’s alarm, and it is almost completely
hidden from above. The baby is left in this cavern while the mother
seeks food, and it lives there until, after a series of short
educational excursions in the water, it has learnt to hunt for itself,
and its lungs have accustomed themselves to the conditions of the adult
seal’s existence.
Frequently indeed the baby gets drowned! The mother may have heard some
noise above which has alarmed her. Fearing danger, she has thrust her
head up through the diving hole, caught hold of the young one, and
hastily retreated with it to a depth unsuitable for its tender lungs,
with a sad and fatal result.
The Eskimo sealer knows all this natural history as he knows that of
every other denizen of the Arctic, and founds upon it his methods in
hunting.
Directly he has detected the locality of a seal’s nursing cavern under
his feet, either by the presence of a slight depression in the snow, or
by the pointing of the dog, he arms himself with a nixie, or hook on
the end of a long shaft, and gathering himself together makes a
tremendous jump into the air, coming down with all his weight and force
upon the spot. He jumps again and again, until at last the snow caves
in and blocks the hole below, cutting off the baby seal’s retreat into
the sea beneath. Then he prods and probes among the débris of the
cavern for the imprisoned creature, locates it, hooks it out, and kills
it with one blow on the head. After that, there is the mother to be
caught. She is probably lurking under the ice nearby. So, before he
kills the little one, the hunter ties his sealing line to one of its
flippers and pushes it through the diving hole into the water. The
mother at once tries to come to its rescue, only to encounter her own
devoted death. She, too, is hooked, dragged out, and despatched.
The seal has other enemies to contend with besides man. The bear has a
keen scent, a heavy paw, a huge appetite, and a peculiar relish for her
young. He, too, wanders out on the sealing grounds at the proper
season, and having found a cavern, sets his two huge forepaws on the
snow and, with one mighty push, breaks it all in. He easily hooks the
helpless little creature beneath, and devours it with ursine relish.
Or it may be that an arctic fox decides to spend a day seal hunting. He
glides over the snow, an almost invisible shape, like nothing so much
as a white wraith of the desolation around. His scent having guided him
to a likely spot, and being unable, like the bear, to do his
housebreaking by mere brute force, he adopts a peculiarly wicked plan
of his own. Planting all four feet together pivot-fashion, he spins
himself round and round, his claws boring a way through the snow, until
he corkscrews his unwelcome presence into the seal’s retreat. The baby,
again, falls a helpless victim.
This seal hunting of the tribesmen, far out at sea in the camp on the
ice, is not without its dangers, as the following tale will show.
For several weeks all had gone prosperously with the sealers. The
weather had been good, and the young seals plentiful. Loaded sleds had
been continually going to and fro between the winter village on shore
and the village on the ice, bearing meat and skins to the old folk at
home. Contentment and jollity reigned, for had not the Conjurors
guaranteed prosperity and good luck, and were their prophecies not
amply fulfilled?
But, one day, the sky became overcast. Hour after hour it grew more
heavily banked with forbidding cloud, whilst from seaward came a low
roar, the presage of an arctic storm. The sealers hastily retreated to
their dwellings, and blocked up their doors, and prepared to wait.
Evening drew nigh, and the tempest rose. An occasional quiver of the
icy floor told of the pounding of heavy breakers at the floe edge, and
a portentous shiver now and again spoke of masses of it being broken
away.
With the indifference which comes of familiarity with danger, these
hardy northern folk stayed out there in camp, on the very edge as it
were of death; and as the night drew on, merely rolled themselves in
their fur blankets and went to sleep, confident that the morning would
see an abatement in the storm. Nevertheless, it went on increasing and
grew more and more violent. The shivering dogs scratched holes for
themselves in the snow on the lee side of the igloos, and buried
themselves as deeply as they could. At length the Eskimo instinct of
peril was aroused, and an intuitive sense of the full extent of the
catastrophe at hand (a sense not developed to any marked degree among
civilised peoples), roused the entire camp.
It began when a woman and her husband waked suddenly, feeling that all
was not well. They looked round the igloo, yet could detect nothing
amiss. Its other occupants slept soundly. There was the thud and the
roar of the wild hurricane without, but all seemed snug within.
And yet—what was that? Even as the goodwife watched and waited, there
came another of those strange quiverings in the ice, and the cooking
pot suspended over the lamp began to swing. The awful thing told its
own tale! The ice on which the camp was built was breaking up beneath
it, and every soul was faced with imminent and deadly peril. The sea
was fathoms deep below; the land a long distance away! Darkness and the
savage uproar without made chaos of the arctic night.
Then indeed the ice gave way, and in a moment became nothing but a
pounding, grinding mass of detatched fragments, on which the wrecked
camp tossed. The sealers, roughly awakened, smashed down their doors,
or with knife and spear cut a way out of their igloos as best they
might, and got clear of them, followed by the women and children. With
the strange but unerring instinct of primitive man, they headed, even
in that tumult and pitchy darkness, for the unseen land; and then began
a perilous race with death and the spirits of the storm.
They had to spring from floe to floe, following each other, encouraging
and helping the women, finding a way where from moment to moment there
might be none, risking everything at every leap.
Among those in the crowd was Kownak, a young hunter, and his new made
wife. The girl was only then recovering from a recent sickness, and her
strength completely failed her. The two started, indeed, on their
ghastly journey like the rest; but before half the distance to safety
was accomplished the young wife—wet, terrified, and weak—sank down
exhausted and beaten on the bitter ice with a cry of despair. Kownak
lifted her up and bore her on in his arms. But the rocking of the ice
flung them both into the sea time and again, despite his utmost
endeavour. Once he managed to grip the edge of the floe, whilst the
girl scrambled back on to it again over his shoulders. He stripped off
his coat to wrap it round her in the frantic effort to keep her from
freezing, and tried again to lift and carry her. But it was an
impossible feat on the tossing, glassy ice. She struggled to rise and
stagger on, but could endure no more and sank down again, unconscious,
to be frozen to death within another minute.
Kownak could not tear himself from the body until it had become nothing
but an indistinguishable mass, one with the ice. Only then did he
remember his own desperate plight, and make a final effort to save
himself. After incredible exertions and hairbreadth escapes, at last he
reached the shore, black with frostbite, and joined the surviving
remnant of the sealing camp. The merest handful of the people had
outlived that terrible night.