NOMADS OF THE FROZEN NORTH

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 234, 1 July 1939, Page 6 (Supplement)

NOMADS OF THE FROZEN NORTH

Life Of The

Eskimo Tribes

From the southern shores of Hudson Bay to Ellesmere Island and from Baffin Land and Ungava Bay to Herschel Island, nomadic tribes of Eskimo spend their lives moving from Place to place in pursuit of the wild life, writes the Right Rev. A. L. Fleming D.D., Bishop of the Arctic, in “The Times, London. With the exception of a few at the mouth of the Mackenzie River and those employed by white men at some of the posts on the Arctic shores, the Canadian Eskimo live the primitive nomadic life of their forefathers. For six months each winter they make thenhomes in huts built of blocks of snow with a piece of clear fresh-water ice or the membrane from the seal for windows. These dwellings, which they call igloos, are heated by means of the oldfashioned crescent-shaped lamp made of soapstone obtained locally, in which blubber from the seal, walrus, white whale or narwhal is used for oil, and dried moss mixed with the bloom of the cotton weed takes the place of wick. During the six months of milder wea ther in the spring, summer and autumn, the igloo gives place to the tent, made sometimes of duck, sometimes- of caribou skins, but often of seal skin.

These tribes spend their lives bunting, trapping and fishing, and wrest from "grudging nature” enough to carry them on from week to week. In living this nomadic life it stands to reason that they cannot readily adopt the white man’s ideas either of cleanliness or comfort. Travelling over the Arctie tundra inland or around the icebound coasts by sledge and dog team necessitates the reduction of their baggage to the minimum. To one who has had the privilege of living with them in close personal contact in their own dwellings, the marvel has been that they fared so well.

Year by year civilization is creeping northward, and in the last ten yeai.> the advance has been much more rapid than at any other period In history. With the advent of the aeroplane, the radio and the wireless, a new day has come, not only for, the white people in tbe North, but also for the natives, and Canada is now faced with a definite

challenge whether or not she will so plan today that these tribes, who represent the most primitive race in tbe Dominion, shall be preserved for the future.

Wherever the white man has gone the tendency has been to destroy the native and there are not lacking those who believe that the Eskimo is already doomed. To the Hudson’s Bay Company and the aeroplane companies must be given the credit for providing the most effective means of transport each year throughout the Canadian Arctic, both in the East and in the West. The Government, for their part, have instituted laws and regulations governing hunting and trapping, and have created large preserves where only the native is allowed entrance. This is a step in the right direction which must prove of untold value in the future and should be extended.

Besides that, the Government have been studying the health and development of the Eskimo and pay per capita grants for patients treated in mission hospitals and for children attending school. They have further made a most successful adventure by importing a large herd of reindeer which, in flveyears, has increased to almost double the original number, besides supplying valuable food in a limited area. In connexion with this herd, another hopeful sign is to be found in the fact that the first herders, who came from Lapland, are rapidly being replaced by Eskimo herders, and the rising generation of natives at the mouth of tbe Mackenzie River are becoming "reindeerminded.”

The vital statistics gathered by me Government at Ottawa have revealed that, where mission hospitals have been established, the health of the people has improved enormously, and the population is on the increase, whereas at other points the population is decreas ing, 'sometimes very rapidly, and the general health of the native is poor. In this connexion tribute should be paid, not only to the mission hospitals, but to the Government medical officers in charge. The new All Saints' Hospital, Aklavik, has accommodation for 48 patients, electric light, X-ray, operating theatre, dental surgery and outdoor clinic. /” .