Material Culture of the Iglulik Eskimos/Chapter 2

The territory of the Iglulik Eskimos lies between lat. 63° and 74° N. and long. 74° and 92° W. It comprises the west side of Roes Welcome from the mouth of Chesterfield Inlet to Repulse Bay, Southampton Island, Melville Peninsula and northern Baffin Land (Cockburn Land) to about long 74° W. This area is inhabited or fairly regularly traversed by the members of the tribe. This does not mean that these journeys do not occasionally extend beyond these limits, but simply that this is the exception, not the rule.

History of Discovery. As regards the history of its discovery this territory is divided into two parts, it having been discovered from the south, from Hudson Bay, and from the north, from Baffin Bay.

Hudson Bay was discovered by Henry Hudson in 1610, but it is not probable that he reached the west coast. This was first reached by Thomas Button, who in 1613 navigated the coast from Pt. Nelson to about lat. 65° N. In 1615 Bylot and Baffin saw the west coast of Southampton Island, and Jens Munk (1619–20) has probably sailed part of the way up the west coast of Roes Welcome, as on his chart there are two fjords which were not previously marked, presumably Chesterfield Inlet and Ranken Inlet. Luke Fox (1631) did not achieve much beyond Button's discoveries, C. Middleton being the first to do so, he having in 1742 reached Repulse Bay and ascertained that Southampton Island was an island.

In the meantime, northern Baffin Land had long been discovered. Baffin was the first to see the coasts of this land (1616) and John Ross was the first to land there (on Bylot Island); he discovered Ponds Inlet (1818) which, however, he thought was a bay.

The discovery and exploration of this region must, more than to anyone else, be credited to W. E. Parry, one of the greatest names in the history of discovery. On his first voyage (1819–20) Parry discovered most of the great fjords on the north coast of Cockburn Land: River Clyde, Navy Board Inlet, Admiralty Inlet, as well as ​the northern part of the coast towards Prince Regents Inlet. On his second voyage (1821–23) Parry visited Duke of York Bay, Repulse Bay, the east coast of Melville Peninsula and the south coast of Cockburn Land, spending two winters, one at Winter Island and one at Iglulik; both Parry and his second-in-command, G. F. Lyon, give excellent accounts of the Eskimos, with whom they had lively intercourse.

Most of the later North-West Passage and Franklin Relief expeditions passed the territory of the Iglulik Eskimos; in particular, most of them put in at Ponds Inlet in order to get news from the Eskimos; but only little information can be had from their reports. In the south, Repulse Bay was the headquarters of two of these relief expeditions: Dr. J. Rae's in 1847–50 and 1853–54, by which the west coast of Melville Peninsula was mapped, and C. F. Hall's in 1864–69, with two sledge journeys to Iglulik. But neither in Rae's nor Hall's reports is there much information regarding the Eskimos; Hall's book, which was published after his death by J. E. Nourse, must furthermore be handled with great caution, as the information and illustrations in it often seem to have come from quite other Eskimo tribes (Compare the sledges pp. 85 and 221, which are presumably from West Greenland and the Polar Eskimos respectively, and the seal scratcher p. 352 and the boots p. 380, which presumably came from the Western Eskimos). Schwatka's expedition (described by Klutschak and Gilder) 1878–80 to King Williams Land, had its headquarters near Depot Island, north of Chesterfield Inlet, and they were very intimate with the Eskimos.

The works of Professor, Dr. Franz Boas are, however, of much greater importance. It is through these that this Eskimo group is first made the subject of scientific research. In 1888 he made a valuable survey of the Central Eskimo tribes; some of the information for this work he collected himself during a visit to Cumberland Gulf, Baffin Land, and he also collected everything obtainable in earlier literature. In 1901 and in 1907 he published the great collections which the whaler Captain George Comer from time to time brought home from the west coast of Hudson Bay and which are now to be found in the American Museum of Natural History and have hitherto formed one of the main sources of knowledge on the Iglulik Eskimos.

Of later expeditions I would mention A. P. Low's voyage with the "Neptune", 1903–4, when he wintered at Fullerton and also visited Ponds Inlet, and J. E. Bernier's many voyages in the "Arctic", including a winter in far north Admiralty Inlet 1910–11; these voyages have not, however, resulted in much that is new about the Eskimos. ​Turquetil's little work in "Anthropos" for 1926 is only of slight importance to this work, as in the first place it mostly deals with the intellectual culture, and secondly, it does not keep the Aivilingmiut and the Qaernermiut separate. The recently published book by Leden does not give much information either.

The old trading station Fort Churchill, which was established as early as 1718, is outside the territory of the Iglulik Eskimos, it is true; but it could be reached by these when on journeys. In the middle of the 19th century whaling begun in Hudson's Bay, where Marble Island, south of Chesterfield Inlet, was the most important winter-headquarter. In 1889 the first whaler, the "Arctic", wintered in Repulse Bay, where Ship's Harbour Island during subsequent years became a regular wintering place for whaling ships. In 1903 a police station and a trading station (Hudson's Bay Company) were established at Fullerton Harbour; in 1912 the latter was removed to Chesterfield Inlet; in 1921 a Hudson Bay Company station was established in Repulse Bay and in 1924 on Southampton Island. In 1903 a trading and whaling station was started at Ponds Inlet and in 1921 it was taken over by the Hudson's Bay Company, who in 1923 opened another station at River Clyde; in 1922 a police station was established at Ponds Inlet.

Despite the fact that so many expeditions have been to the country and that civilisation, solely through the establishment of trading and police stations, has obtained a firm footing there, enormous tracts still lie quite unexplored and unmapped; this is particularly true of Cockburn Land.

Terrain. The mainland coast south of Repulse Bay is typical Barren Grounds land. A low, rugged, monotonous, rocky landscape, which at the coast rarely rises to a heigt of 100 metres; the higher portions consist of naked rock, the lower is formed of moraine material from the glacial age and marine post-glacial deposits. The coastline itself is irregular, with the two big fjords, apparently excavated by the ice: Wager and Chesterfield inlets, and a large number of smaller bays and coves; at places a number of small islands lie off the coast, here and there forming quite a protective belt. In the low, monotonous country, which is still suffering from the disturbances of the erosion of the glacial age, there are numerous large and small lakes and swamps, and the waterways are a constant alternation of lakes and rapids.

The southern half of Melville Peninsula is very similar to the country described above, of which it is in fact a continuation. Like that country, it is an old peneplain but on an average lies a little higher; heights of 150–200 are not unusual in the interior of the ​country. The surface of the old peneplain is cut up by the erosion of water and ice; faults also play a part in the formation of the terrain. There are numbers of lakes, and the rivers often form large but irregular valleys. The southern part of Melville Peninsula is very much cut up by Repulse Bay, Gore Bay and Lyon Inlet and their offshoots. The lower stretches are often occupied by shore-ridges, almost the whole of the region having been sunk under the sea since the glacial period.

Fig. 1.The Terrain around Naujan in Repulse Bay.

Along the east side of Melville Peninsula, from Usugarssuk northwards, stretches a belt of silurian limestone formations in front of the higher rock terrain, which in most places ends abruptly in a steep cliff. The native limestone itself, yellowy-grey in colour and fairly hard, appears only exceptionally; otherwise the land consists of loose fragments which have been forced by the ice into shore ridges which, through the slow rising of the land, have thus come to lie the one behind the other, rising almost imperceptibly to the foot of the primitive rock. These shore ridges, which are bare of vegetation in summer and of snow in winter, intersected by partly swampy hollows which in summer have a little vegetation, in winter are covered with snow, form the characteristic type of landscape of Iglulik; in this is included the peninsulas Amitsoq and Ingnertoq, the land around Hall's Lake and the island of Iglulik itself.

Southampton Island, which is separated from the mainland by the sound Roes Welcome — a water very difficult to cross — and Frozen Strait, consists of the same two kinds of terrain as Melville Peninsula: ​to the north-east a fairly high, plateau-like, primitive rock land, falling rather steeply on all sides, especially at the high north-east coast, and to the south-west a low limestone country, at the coasts characterised by the same regular shore ridges, in the interior changing from desertlike limestone stretches to endless swamps, a terrain which, on account of the sharp edges of the limestone fragments, is extremely difficult to pass over in summer. The coasts of the limestone country are very flat — watery and difficult of access, full of dangerous rocks.

Fig. 2.The Iglulik limestone country.

The terrain of Cockburn is rather varied. The primitive rock peneplain continues from Melville Peninsula on the far side of Fury and Hecla Strait and occupies a large part of the south of Cockburn Land: round Gifford Fjord, the southern part of Admiralty Inlet and north of Murray Maxwell Inlet and east of Steensby Fjord; heigths of 2–300 m are not rare here. The low silurian limestone country of Iglulik also continues on the far side of Fury and Hecla Strait, where it appears on Jens Munk Island, west of Steensby Fjord and over Koch Island and Sadleq towards Piling. In addition, the silurian occupies the whole of the north-western part of Cockburn Land west of Navy Board Inlet and Milne Inlet, where it forms a plateau land of 2–300 m height, of regularly deposited layers of limestone and sandstone, falling abruptly towards the coasts and the deeply indented fjords and valleys. South-east of Milne Inlet there is a similar, but rather lower limestone plateau, partly disintegrated into a number of ​low table-bluffs. On the north-east this silurian stretch reaches up to high primitive rock land, which seems to have a fault line scarf towards the south and, besides, rises to considerable heights and falls steeply towards Eclipse Sound and Baffin Bay. At Ponds Inlet it has heights of about 1000 m, only interrupted by a small section of low country on the south side, where tertiary sandstone and local layers appear. The primitive rock country reaches its culmination on Bylot Island, where there are pointed peaks of heights up to 2000 m and big glaciers. The coast towards Baffin Bay is a steep fjord coast, at several places with large ice caps, whereas the coast towards Prince Regents Inlet forms an inaccessible rock wall in which erosion has eaten out the shapes like castle ruins which are known from the illustrations of many of the books of the Franklin Expeditions. The deep fjords greatly facilitate entrance into the interior of Cockburn Land, while several low passes lead across it, such as Gifford Fjord — Admiralty Inlet, Steensby Fjord — Milne Inlet and Isortoq — Anaularealing.

The whole region has been covered with ice in the glacial period; this is borne out by the moraine material, numerous glacial striae and many forms of terrain such as the big fjords, which must be assumed to have been eroded by ice; it is only in the mountains of Cockburn Land that the ice has been able to hold its own.

There are not many minerals that can be utilized. Soapstone is found at Wager Inlet (Eskimo: Ukusikssalik), a little way from the mouth on the north coast and by the river Eqalugarssuk near Ingnertoq; a poor variety is found in Repulse Bay. From the northern part of Admiralty Inlet comes a marl slate which is in great demand for lamp trimmers. Parry^[1] mentions that asbestos for lamp trimmers is found in Repulse Bay. The limestone regions are rich in flint (which, however, is only found in small lumps except on Southampton Island), and pyrites; the latter is used for fire-making. Slate, which was formerly used for blades of weapons and knives, is found scattered over the most of the whole area, carried by the ice from the places where it occurs in Cockburn Land; nowadays it is only used for whetting stones.

Climate. Series of observations covering a long connected period are still lacking, so that exact figures regarding the climate cannot be given.

The whole region seems to have a fairly uniform climate, an Arctic continental climate very much influenced by the great North American continent. Only in the far south is there a rather higher summer temperature, and farthest to the northeast the mitigating in​fluence of Baffin Bay may make itself felt, whereas the ice-filled Hudson Bay does not succeed in altering the severe continental character of the climate. In the period from December to March inclusive the mean temperature mostly fluctuates between −30 and 35° C; for long periods, however, it often falls below −40° and, occasionally, below −50°. April and November have a mean temperature of about −20°, October about −10°, May −5°. June and September about 0" and July–August about +5°; only on a few warm days does the temperature rise above +10°. During the greater part of the year a north and north-west wind blows; the direction of the wind is only more variable in summer. Violent gales are rare; but on the other hand complete calm is also rare; a steady north wind is most often blowing, sufficiently to set the fine drift-snow in motion — the "ground sweeping" of the Eskimos. Considerably quantities of snow fall during the course of the year, and some rain in summer; but how much cannot be said. The country is covered with snow from about 1st October till the beginning of July, although in the south only until the middle of June. Lakes and rivers become covered with ice in the latter part of September, and it breaks again in the middle of June. Even in mid-summer there may be night frost and snow; none of the months of the year are entirely free from snowstorms.

Ice Conditions. Along the coast from Chesterfield Inlet to Repulse Bay a narrow barrier of smooth winter ice forms in winter; only at certain projections of the land does the ice pack very much. The mouth of Wager Inlet never freezes over, whereas the inner part of the gulf has a flat covering of ice. The ice appears on this stretch in October–November and breaks up in July.

Repulse Bay is covered every year with flat winter ice, which appears in October and does not break up until August. In 1846 Rae was able to run into Repulse Bay on 25th July; but this is the exception. In 1854 he could not leave it before 4th August, and Hall mentions that in 1865 the ice broke up on 6th August. In the summer when I was at Repulse Bay, 1922, the ice did not break until 16th–17th August.

It is only occasionally that Roes Welcome and Frozen Strait freeze over in winter. Not infrequently the former is passable in winter owing to the fact that the drifting masses of ice freeze together for a day or two, only to separate again when the wind blows. In February-March, 1923, Frozen Strait was covered with firm winter ice up to a line from Fængselsporten to Baffin Land; this, however, was a rare exception.

On Southampton Island flat winter ice forms in the big bays, Duke of York and South Bay, and a narrow barrier along the south ​and west coasts; according to Munn, the ice in South Bay left the coast in 1917 on 14th July, in 1918 on 8th August. There is no continuous ice barrier on the north-east coast; this high, steep coast is on the whole difficult of access, blocked by pack-ice in summer and with open water in winter.

In the waters between Vansittart Island and Winter Island, as well as in Gore Bay and Lyon Inlet, the ice appears every year, in the outer part (for instance round Danish Island) often in the form of pack-ice, however. There are open current holes throughout the winter in Hurd Channel and the narrows of Lyon Inlet. A barrier of mostly flat winter ice follows the west coast of Melville Peninsula, only broken by the stretch from Cape Wilson to Cape Brown, where open water reaches right into the coast. The winter ice attains great extent in the bay at Amitsoq and in Fury and Hecla Strait, where towards the east it reaches almost a line from Alarnang to Calthorpe Island; in the narrowest part of the strait, however, there is a big current hole. Other wide areas with flat winter ice are Murray Maxwell Bay and Steensby's Fjord; open current holes are to be found by the western entrance to Murray Maxwell Bay and between Koch Island and Sadleq. Parry was able to leave his winter harbour at Iglulik with his ships on 8th August, 1823.

The great fjords in Cockburn Land are covered with flat winter ice; there is an important current opening in Paaskesundet in Admiralty Inlet. Along the more open coasts towards Baffin Bay and Prince Regents Inlet a narrow ice barrier forms, at the capes often with pack ice and with open water near. At Ponds Inlet the ice most often breaks up about 1st August, although in 1923 this took place on 24th July, in 1907 (Bernier) on 20th July: it forms again in October.

In the short period of open water, which often only lasts about two months, navigation in these waters is often a most incalculable matter owing to the great masses of ice that always drift about in Hudson Bay, Fox Basin and Baffin Bay. With the east winds which are not of rare occurrence in summer, these masses of ice are forced on to the coasts of the country, fill all the bays and coves and put a stop to all communication. The strong tide-water currents will. however, gradually loosen the ice if the west wind does not blow it away entirely. If these old masses of drifting ice set fast in all bays and fjords, as it does happen on rare occasions, it means nothing short of a catastrophe to the inhabitants; not only is sledge-journeying on the sea ice rendered almost impossible, but hunting the seal on the ice, especially at the breathing holes, cannot be pursued.

​Flora. Vegetation in this region is very sparse, as might be expected with the severe climate; the time for growing is very short. There is a good deal of difference, however, between north and south, where the stronger sun rays have more effect. The mountain heath is the characteristic plant community, with cushion-like herbs, dwarf bushes and lichen; only on the lower, moist places is there a continuous covering of vegetation, mostly consisting of grasses and cyperacea and willow bushes, the branches of which are, however, too slender to be of any practical use. Standing on the top of a high hill at Ponds Inlet on an August day and looking over the low country, it has a grey appearance; the vegetation is not dense enough to give it colour; only by the settlements are there green patches where the soil for centuries has been manured with blubber and refuse.

Thus in these regions the flora plays a very small anthropogeographical part. The most important is the heather, Cassiope tetragona, which is used as fuel in summer and as platform covering in the snow houses in winter; in many places, however, it is very sparse and must be replaced by willow twigs, bilberry twigs and other substitutes. There are scarcely any berries, only a few bilberries (Vaccinium uliginosum) and black crowberry (Empetrum nigrum); of other plants that are occasionally eaten by the Eskimos may be mentioned Oxyria digyna ("sernat" leaves) and the roots of Silene acaulis; but they have not the slightest significance as food. Cotton grass and moss provide materials for lamp-wicks, and bilberry twigs are chopped up and mixed with their tobacco. But with these the contribution of the flora to the Eskimo housekeeping is exhausted.

Fauna. Of land mammals only the caribou and, now, the fox are of much practical importance. The musk ox, which was formerly to be found on the Melville Peninsula and the mainland south of it, has long been exterminated there. As late as in 1853 Rae secured a musk ox in Repulse Bay, and several of the older Aivilik Eskimos alive to-day have been on a musk ox hunt in behind Wager Bay, where Schwatka's Expedition in 1879 also met with musk oxen.

Caribou are still present in large numbers, although modern firearms are more and more driving them away from the coast districts; nevertheless, they are still met with in large herds on the Barren Grounds, in the eastern part of Southampton Island and the interior of Melville Peninsula and Cockburn Land, and, in smaller herds, may occasionally be met with everywhere. The caribou on the mainland move southwards every autumn, to return in spring; some, however, always remain.

Wolves are numerous and, in certain stretches of country, for instance on Southampton Island, very embarrassing. The wolverine. ​which does not live on Southampton Island and only recently has appeared for the first time in Baffin Land, is feared for the ease with which it destroys caches. Foxes are plentiful everywhere, principally the Arctic fox. Hares are met with everywhere, but not in large numbers; marmots (Arctomys Parryi) and the lemming are common (the former only on the mainland, however), but are not of practical importance.

Bears are numerous on Southampton Island, at which they arrive on the masses of drift ice from Fox Basin, and in Lancaster Sound and Prince Regents Inlet; in fact they may be met with anywhere now and then.

Of aquatic mammals the two kinds of seal, the small seal (Phoca foetida) and the bearded seal (P. barbata) are common everywhere; in July 1922 from Naujan Hill, Repulse Bay, I was able to count 210 small seals and six bearded seals on the ice. Walruses are particularly numerous in the Iglulik area: Iglulik, Pingerqalik, Ugle, Amitsoq, and also occur in many other places, as in Frozen Strait and Roes Welcome; in former days Aivilik, in Repulse Bay, was the principal hunting ground; now it is mostly Beach Point, Duke of York Bay and the south coast of Southampton Island, as well as Depot Island. In northern Baffin Land they are not so common. On the other hand the fjords there — Ponds Inlet, Navy Board Inlet and Admiralty Inlet — are particularly rich in narwhals. White whales are found in several places: Roes Welcome, Lyon Inlet, Duke of York Bay, although rarely in large numbers. The once so great abundance of bowhead whales has long been a thing of the past; the last whale left Hudson Bay in 1912. Roes Welcome, Repulse Bay, Lyon Inlet and Ponds Inlet were formerly extremely rich in whales and were important whaling centres. Now the Eskimos only occasionally catch a whale. In 1922 one was caught in Repulse Bay and the same year one at Ponds Inlet; at both places this was the first whale taken for many years.

Birds are not particularly abundant. Of land birds ravens and owls are seen all the year round; ptarmigan are met with everywhere, but rarely in large numbers. Here and there the gull is to be found in great colonies; in Cockburn Land in many places there are guillemot cliffs. Eider ducks, loons and various kinds of ducks are met with everywhere, though not very abundantly. Southampton Island is famous for its swans. All in all, however, birds play only a very small part in the life of the Eskimos.

Of much more importance are the fish, and of these practically only the trout, which are to be found in almost all lakes and rivers of any size, often in great numbers; there are various species, some ​of which run between the sea and the lakes, whilst others always remain in the freshwater lakes. The wealth of fish in the sea seems to be small; at any rate it is not much exploited by the Eskimos: at Ponds Inlet there is some fishing for cod and sea scorpions, and at Lyon Inlet and in Duke of York Bay shoals of caplins (angmagssats) sometimes appear.

There are no reptiles. Of the lower animal world may be mentioned the mosquito which, in the short summer — from the middle of July to the middle of August — can make life in the open air a torment. The low, swampy land on Southampton Island is said to be particularly bad in this respect; there are fewest mosquitos in Cockburn Land, although at certain places, for instance round the trading station at Ponds Inlet, they can be extremely annoying.

Mussels and other shell fish do occur, but are only eaten in a half-digested state from the stomachs of killed walruses.