The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1895-10-26

dome of snow above, and curled up on
the bench. The dogs in the passage
snored and whined in their sleep, the
boy baby dn Amoraq's deep fur hood
kicked and choked and gurgled, and
the mother of the newly named puppy
lay at KOtuko's side, her eyes fixed on
the bundle of sealskin-warm and safe
above the broad yellow flame of the
lamp.
And all this happened far away to
the north; beyond Labrador beyond
Hudstons strait, where the great tides
throw the ice mount, north of Melville
peninsula-north even of the narrow
Fury and Hecla straits on the north
shore of Baffin land, where Bylot's
island stands above the dee of Lancaster
sound like a pudding bowl wrong side
up. North of Lancaster sound there
Us nothing we know anything about eX-
cept North Devon and Ellesmere Land
but even there live a few scattered peo-
pie next door, as 1t were, to the very
pole.
Kadlu was an Inuit-what you call
an Esquimau-and his tribe, some
fifty persons all told. belonged to the
Tununirmiut-''the country lying at
the back OF something" In the maps
that desolate coast Is called Navy
because the country lies at the very
back of everything In the world. For
nine months OF the year there Is only ice
as hard as rock, snow, and gale after
gale, with cold that no one can real
aze Who has never seen the thermome-
ter go down even TO zero. For six
months Of those nine 1t is dark, and THAT
9s what makes 1t SO horrible. For the
tnree months OF the summer 1t only
freezes every other day and every
night, and then the snow begins to
sweep away to the southerly slopes, and
Anew ground willows put out their WOOL
ly buds, a tiny stone crop or so makes
believe to blossom, beaches of fine
gravel and rounded stones run down to
the open sea, and polished powders and
streaked rocks lift up above the granu-
lated snow. But all that goes away
IN a few weeks, and the wild winter
looks down again on the land; while at
sea the torn and powdered ice tears up
ana down the offing. jamming and ram
ming, and splitting and hitting, and
pounding and grounding, till 1t all
freezes together ten feet thick from the
hand outward to deep water.
In the winter .Kadlu would follow the
seals to the edge Of the land ice and
spear them as they came up to breathe
at their blow holes. The seals must
have open water to live and catch Ash
IN, and in the deep OF winter the ice
would sometimes run eighty miles
without q break from the nearest land.
In the spring he and his people retreat
ed from the thawing foes to the rocky
mainland, where they put up tents of
skins and SHARED the sea birds or
speared the young seal basking on the
beaches. Later. they would go souff,
into Baffin land after the reindeer and
TO get their years store OF salmon from
the hundreds of streams and lakes of
the INTERIOR coming back north In Sep
tember. or October for the musk OK
hunting and the regular winter sealery.
This travelling was done with dog
sleighs, twenty and thirty miles q. day,
o. sometimes down the coast IN big skin
woman boats" when the dogs and
the babies lay among the feet Of the
rowers, and the women sang songs as
they g1tded from cape to cape over the
olassx oold waters All the haxurues
~