Page:Material Culture of the Iglulik Eskimos.djvu/25

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.