Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1908-04-07
STALKING CARIBOU IN ALASKA.
Esquimau's Power Of Endurance-Their
Two Camps.

Esqumau's Power of Endurance-Their
Two Camps.
The only man who navigates the
Arctic ocean in n gaSOlene launch is
q young ROchesterlan who Is on his
way home from the Bering straits,
says the Rochester Post Express.
Alexander Allen left Rochester some
yeas ago to seek n fortune digging
| for color" in Alaska, in the rich gold
fields that lie beside and behind Nome,
but when a two years stake did not
bring him a fortune he loaded q gas
olene launch to the scuppers with
everything from Teddy bears to har-
poons and started his hyperbolean
trading cruises.
Mr.. Allen says that the American
EsquimauX acquire wonderful powers
of endurance, and are possibly the
greatest long distance runners in the
world, for they have to trail game to
get food for their starving camps in
winter and hunt the far North animals
for furs to barter with the traders in
summer.
The natives have two camps. When
the thaw sets in and the rivers open
they come down from the interior to
camp in villages at the heads of
creeks and inlets of the Arctic coast.
But after the few traders who visit
them in the open seasons have return
ed south to escape the early forming
ice and to miss the rigorous dangers
of the inblowing storms which pile the
icepacks upon the broken Alaskan
coast, the Esquimaux again break
camp to return inland for hundreds Of
miles, where they subdivide once more
into smaller bodies, each family of
which has assigned to it the hunting
rights to certain creeks and country.
When Mr. Allen arrived with a well
laden cargo at Killaturruck. shortly
after the hunters Of the village had re-
turned from inland points distant 500
miles, he saw them engage in games
and contests after finishing their bar
tering. The boys played football and
the men ran races. The game consist
ed in kicking what looked like a base
| ball made out of raw sealskin and
stuffed with caribou hair, and the run
ming track was merely the round Of a
lake the circumference of which meas
ured between thirty and forty miles.
These efforts to play and race while
clad in the ordinary warm fur cos
tunes seemed to fatigue neither boys
nor men.
The runners acquire their remark
able power Of endurance and tenacity
through cOntending with eXigencies
| while hunting in the winters. After
| they leave the summer camp by the
ocean inlet and move a probable 400
miles inland each family is separated
and located on a certain section. But
in times when food or clothing is scarce
| chief hunter has to proceed an even
| further stage inland, and leaves to
others the trapping OF smaller al
though much richer game while he
hunts necessaries. The mink. marten,
Hudson Bay sable and black tipped
ermine are shot and caught near the
family camp, while the chief hunter
or best runner goes off by himself to
hunt caribou or moose, according to
longitude.
Since caribou follow the high rides
of the mountains, where the snow is
least deep and the chances to find
browsing most favorable, the hunter
has to follow a course that is usually
the coolest. When he crosses a tract
where the white moss grows he knows
he has found g. run game will fire.
quent Some follow the same runs year
after year, and of course in those cases
the hunter knows beforehand fairly
accurately where he will locate to
hunt, but other herds, again, never re-
turn to the same feeding grounds, and
then the hunter seeks them.
He pitches a leanto and starts a
long and patient watch when he
reaches a district he feels the caribou
will Craze through. During the few
daylight hours he does not close an eye
or cease warily to scan each recurring
sign of game, and for days he will
squat and smoke and watch with In
dian stoicism and Roman faithfulness.
If meat be scarce and the camp apt
10 be starved out and the hunter has
been despatched more to replenish the
larder then to secure pelts for cloth