Our main purpose here is not to elucidate or to present conclusions, but rather to present facts which happen to be chiefly in the form of anecdotes; but the foregoing has seemed necessary to give the reader a point of view from which the evidence can be interpreted. To see the bearing of the facts clearly we must keep sight of the two things of main importance: namely, first, that the ideas which the Eskimo has of the new religion are dictated by his environment and colored by the habits of thought developed under the old religion; and, second ( and most important), that he looks upon the missionary as the mouth-piece of God, exactly as the shaman was the mouthpiece of the spirits; bearing these things in mind, we shall glance at the history of the spread of Christianity in Alaska. 

Most of the abstract and strange ideas of which the Eskimo of even the civilized north coast of Alaska have knowledge have been presented to them first by missionaries, who generally precede the school-teacher into distant fields, yet we shall draw our first case for consideration from an Alaskan public school. The winter of 1908, and for a year before that and a year after, the government school teacher at Point Barrow was Mr. Charles W. Hawkesworth. Mr. Hawkesworth was a New Englander, a graduate of Bowdoin, a fine type of man of the sort that is rare even in New England and yet typical of New England. He said, and I agreed with him, that he thought the Eskimo boys and girls at Barrow had as much native intelligence as boys and girls of a similar age and the same grade in school in Massachusetts or New Hampshire. But I told him that, admitting all that, I did not believe they were getting from the books which they read and the lectures which he delivered to them the same ideas that pupils in a Massachusetts school would get, for their environment was so essentially different from that described in the books that many a thing which is a plain statement to a boy in Massachusetts must be to the boy, of northern Alaska a riddle without a key. Apparently Mr. Hawkesworth did not fully agree with me in this, but an examination in United States history which he held shortly after gave results which bore out my contention fairly well. He had been lecturing for several weeks on the causes of the war with England, and his pupils had in connection with these lectures read the ordinary assigned reading required of pupils of the eighth and ninth grades. Among other things, they had heard much of the “ Boston Tea Party” and of the events that preceded and followed. One of the questions in the examination was, “ Why did the American colonists go to war with England ? ” and one of the brightest Eskimo boys wrote the following answer : “ It was no wonder that the Americans got angry at the English, for the English were so mean they put tacks in the tea they sold the Americans. ' The point is obvious. Had the lectures and reading been on the Pure Food and Drugs Act, every pupil in the Barrow school would have understood, because the adulteration of food by traders is to them a familiar thing; but taxation, with or without representation, was a foreign idea and essentially incomprehensible. And if taxation is incomprehensible when presented by a schoolmaster, our abstract religious concepts are no less so when expounded by a missionary. 

The Christianity which exists in the minds of the missionaries being as essentially incomprehensible to the Eskimo as our abstract political and scientific ideas and complex social organization, the missionaries at first naturally accomplished little. At the mouth of the Mackenzie River, for instance, when I was there first in the winter of 1906–07, the missionaries of the Church of England had been already for more than a decade without making a convert. The people were still unconverted in September, 1907, when I left the district. When I returned in June, 1908, they had been Christianized to the last man. 

I am not sure where Christianity started in Arctic Alaska, but I believe it to have been in Kotzebue Sound. So soon as the people here were converted, there grew up among them what might be called an Eskimoized Christianity, in other words, Christianity comprehensible to the Eskimo. The real Christianity had had great difficulty in taking root, but this new form spread like the measles. It went northwest along the coast to Point Hope, and northeast across the mountains to the Colville River, so that when I reached the Colville in October, 1908, every man there had become a Christian, although they had had no direct dealings with white missionaries.  

I was considerably astonished ( in October, 1908 ), on entering the first Eskimo house at the mouth of the Itkillik, a branch of the Colville, to have set before me a wash-dish and towel, and to have my host recite a lengthy prayer over the wash-dish, in order, as he said, to make the water suitable for my use. According to my custom, I declined the use of the basin and towel, even after they had been consecrated, telling my host that a boiled towel would have been much more attractive to me than a consecrated one; for here, as everywhere else among the civilized Eskimo, one must be on his guard against the contagious skin and eye diseases of civilization that spread in no way faster than by the use of common towels. 

After my Eskimo companions had washed (from ancestral custom they were inclined to accept every new taboo as a matter of course), another prayer was recited over the basin and towel, and then a lengthy grace was said over the food before we commenced eating, as well as a separate one over the teacups, which were brought in at the end of the meal. Finally, thanks were offered at the close. I asked my host from whence he got these prayers and these new ideas, and he said that they came over the mountains from Kotzebue Sound, brought by a man well versed in the new religion and the possessor of a great many efficient prayers. The best prayer of all which this man had brought, and the most useful, our host told us, was one for caribou. The Colville people had used it the first year with such success that they had killed as many caribou as they had any need for. This was three years ago, and last year the prayer had not worked so well, while this year it had seemed to be of no use at all. The hunting had been very poor indeed. By the gradually decreasing efficiency of this prayer our host had been led to suppose that prayers, like white men's rifles and other things which they bring, had their full efficiency only while new, and no doubt gradually wore out and finally became useless. ( This, by the way, can scarcely be said to be in the terms of the old religion, for it was believed that the older a charm was the greater its power. They had apparently transferred their experience with the white man's shoddy trade goods to the realm of his religion.) Now that this prayer, after three years' use, had lost its power over game, our host inquired anxiously if we did not know a good one from the Mackenzie River missionary, of the general efficiency of whose prayers the Colville people had heard much. I knew no such prayer, and neither did Natkusiak, but Akpek announced he had a fairly good one. When this fact became known, the village lost interest in the two of us in large measure, and concentrated it on Akpek, who was fêted and invited about from house to house, always followed by a crowd of people eager to learn from him the new prayer to have it ready for the caribou hunting in the spring.

On the way south we happened to pick up a polar bear that was wandering about on shore. A day or two before that Palaiyak and Mangilanna had secured a young grizzly bear, and a day or two after Palaiyak got another one in the Melvill Mountains south of Langton Bay. In general, however, at this time we lived on the meat of the bearded seal, which the boys Palaiyak and Mangilanna secured by paddling out to sea in their kayaks and shooting the seals as they slept on floating cakes of ice. 

July 27th Ilavinirk, Natkusiak, and Mangilanna with our umiak started west to the Baillie Islands, while I remained behind doing archæological work around Langton Bay with the intermittent assistance of Palaiyak, Mamayauk, and Nogasak. In general, as I have had many occasions to point out, Nogasak was a very lazy and useless sort of person; but scratching around in the ground with the prospect of finding spear points or knives was something that appealed to her, and she really was my most valuable assistant throughout the entire summer in the work of excavating. I am inclined to think the main reason may have been that I discouraged her from the first, for fear that she might damage through carelessness some important find that she made. She was therefore very careful, and whenever she found a sign of anything she would come to me and tell me about it before she finally dug it up. It would no doubt have been more desirable had I had the means of employing expert diggers who would have done everything according to the book, but as it was it seemed to be much more useful that Nogasak should find things in the wrong way than that they should remain buried and probably unfound forever. 

The time had now come when the caribou might be expected to have a little fat on their backs and the skins were becoming suitable for clothing. Altogether, myself and various members of our party had killed only half a dozen or so caribou since we came back to Langton Bay, and the skins of all of them had been of little use, for they were full of large holes made by the escaping grubs of the bot-fly which had been growing under the hides of the poor animals' backs all winter and which had now just come out of their warm quarters and taken wing. The hair also is rather too short until towards the end of July, but from that time until the 20th of September it is in excellent condition for clothing, after which it becomes too long. 

It is not only the length of hair which is right in the month of August, but also the thickness of the hide itself. From Christmas time until May the skin is as thin as parchment and there is very little strength to it. In June it begins to thicken, but is as yet full of bot-fly holes. Towards the end of July these holes heal up and the skin becomes of the right thickness, while by October it has become too thick and unpliable for use as clothing. For that reason we use the hides of ordinary animals taken in September and October for clothing only in emergencies, and otherwise utilize them for bedding only, except the skins of the old bull caribou, which have often the thickness of sole leather and which we accordingly use for boot soles for our winter footwear. 

It was because we knew the caribou were getting into condition and because we had to “ take thought for the morrow ” in the matter of clothing for winter that we set out on July 30th southward to look for caribou. 

The Endicott Mountains look like mountains true enough as seen from the sea, but when in the three-mile walk inland you have climbed up two thousand feet or so you find yourself on a fairly level table- land, although within three miles from the sea the streams begin to flow inland towards Horton River, which lies about fifteen miles away, parallel to the coast. 

Soon after I reached the top of this plateau and about five miles from camp I came upon a grizzly bear accompanied by two small cubs. I did not realize how small the cubs were at first and shot the old animal and one of the cubs. On closer approach I saw that the living animal was but the size of a wolverine and showed no fear or concern of me whatever. It occurred to me then that it would be a very interesting thing to take the thing alive; but unfortunately I did not have any string with me or other means of taking the cub along to the coast. I therefore returned home and immediately hitched our dogs to a sled, with which and an empty box we started to fetch the bear. It was a matter of eight or ten hours until we got to where I had left the cub behind; but although he had not been afraid of me then, the poor fellow had by now evidently realized the death of his two relatives, and we were at least half a mile away when he saw us and took to his heels. I followed him a considerable distance while the others skinned the two dead bears, but I never got anywhere near him. 

With me the matter of big game hunting is another case of " swords sticking to hands that seek the plow.” I am afraid I am not a true sportsman. It is impossible for me to get enjoyment out of the killing of animals (and as for that, if I did I should get a job in the Chicago stockyards rather than follow poor frightened wild things around with a rifle). It is mere nonsense to talk of wild animals (in the case of those on the continent of North America at least) having a chance for their lives against the hunter. They all give us as wide a berth as they can; their only desire and hope of safety is in hiding or in flight. None of them, so far as my experience goes, will fight unless wounded or cornered, or in the defence of their helpless young. No matter how well they are provided by nature with claws and teeth and stout muscles, they have no more chance against a man with a modern rifle than a fly has against a sledge hammer. 

Unfortunately the Barren Ground grizzly is a priceless thing scientifically. There are practically none of them in museums and one of our avowed objects in coming North was to get some. I never allowed any to pass, therefore, and I shot altogether thirteen, but somehow the killing of these poor animals affected me more than that of any others. They are provided by nature with a fighting equip ment second to no animal on the continent, and yet they try their best to live peacefully and inoffensively. They feed on roots almost entirely, and whenever they discover the sign of a human being, whether they see or smell his footprints, or see him or get his wind, they immediately use every means in their power to get out of the way. But they are dull of sight and not very quick of hearing and when the hunter once sees them there is no escape. 

August 8th Palaiyak hunted to the south also and shot three deer about five miles away from camp. We were about to set out to fetch the meat of them when a sail appeared to the north which our glasses told us was Captain Bernard's Teddy Bear. It was reasonable enough she should arrive just then, although we had not expected her for a week or so yet. 

The Teddy Bear dropped anchor in the harbor late in the afternoon of August 9th, bringing Dr. Anderson, Tannaumirk, and Pannigabluk, all safe. Spring had been very early in Coronation Gulf, and they really could have come out sooner than they did. Cruising up along the southwest coast of Victoria Island they had found our beacon on Bell Island and had thereby, as we intended, been saved from the trip to Banks Island to look for us. 

I was very confident that we would be able in the neighborhood of Langton Bay to kill caribou and grizzly bears enough for our food the coming winter, but our Eskimo knew very well that their country men at the Baillie Islands, less than a hundred miles to the westward, would have plenty of flour, tea, and things of that sort, and we felt they would not be content with us unless they had it also. Captain Bernard had a considerable stock of these things and kindly furnished us with a supply. Dr. Anderson and I are not particular about such luxuries as flour and sugar, but our Eskimo had no scientific interests to keep them in the country, and, like servants everywhere, wanted as high wages and as good food as possible. So of course we had to supply them with what we could get in the way of imported food. 

It is not really so much that these Eskimo regard baking powder bread as such excellent food, but it is rather that they know it is expensive and they are human enough to want to have their neighbors know that they can afford to have this and that to eat even if it does cost money, differing not so much from the rest of humanity in that matter. They judge things chiefly by price, and desire them in proportion to their current market value. 

Dr. Anderson was anxious to communicate with the whaling ships if possible for the purpose of sending out mail and for other reasons,, and so he continued west with the Teddy Bear toward the Baillie Islands with the intention of returning thence with Ilavinirk and Nat kusiak in our umiak, while Tannaumirk and Pannigabluk came ashore and joined us. As the caribou season was now at its best we stayed around Langton Bay only a few hours after the Teddy Bear left and then started inland in the search for game. 

As we have pointed out elsewhere, the caribou hunt is not merely to secure meat. A supply of dried venison to tide you over the sunless days helps you to face the season with confidence, but the main consideration is to secure skins for clothing against the winter. Our method of hunting is in general that we travel from one high hill to another high hill, pause on each hilltop and with our field glasses and telescopes carefully examine every inch of visible ground in the hope of seeing caribou. 

On these summer hunts the dogs are equipped with pack saddles, consisting essentially of two big pouches that nearly reach to the ground on either side of the animal when the pack is in place. These pack saddles are loaded with the heaviest and least bulky things we have to carry. A fifty-pound dog will carry a forty-pound pack or even a heavier one, and he will carry it all day, although his walking gait is rather slow, perhaps not much over two miles an hour. The people of the party will carry on their backs the bulky things, such as the bedding, tents, and cooking utensils. A man does not carry more than thirty or forty pounds, although under special conditions he may carry as much as a hundred and fifty or even two hundred. 

When caribou are discovered, the women and children, if there are any in the party, stop and make camp, while the men secure the caribou, skin them, and cut them up. Usually long before the skinning is done camp has been made; and if the caribou are located so near that the women know the killing has actually taken place, they come with the dogs to help bring home the meat; or if a considerable number of caribou are killed, it may be easier than moving the meat to camp to move the camp up to the scene of the slaughter. The meat is then cut up into thin strips and spread out on the ground or on stones to dry; or if there are sticks available a frame is made over which the meat is hung up. The skins too are spread out to dry. The process of drying meat delays camp moving, so the men go out and hunt for more caribou in all directions from the camp; and if they secure any they usually bring home the meat, unless indeed they make a big killing, in which case it is easier to transport the half-dried meat and the camp gear to the deer kill than to bring home the fresh meat to camp. Then whenever the meat is dried and if no more caribou are likely to be found in that immediate vicinity, the meat is cached in the safest way possible, usually by stones being piled on top of it, and the party moves on, carrying with it the dried caribou skins, for they are too precious to leave behind to the uncertain safety of a cache. The same kind of traveling as before is resumed as soon as all the meat killable in any locality has been turned into dry meat, the party marching from hilltop to hilltop and continually looking for game, which is finally found. And then the same process repeats itself. 

On the particular hunt under discussion the caribou were not very numerous. First we went about fifteen miles south from Langton Bay to the head of a small wooded creek that runs into Horton River from the north, and here during the course of a week we killed about a dozen caribou and three grizzly bears. The Eskimo generally merely wind-dry the meat, but personally I rather prefer the Indian method of smoke-drying it, and so we built a spruce bough lodge in the Indian style and dried the meat that way. This has an additional advantage, for when you want to leave for another hunting camp you can with tolerable safety cache anything you want inside of the abandoned lodge, for the smoke smell, while it is at all fresh, will keep beasts of prey at a distance. Eventually, of course (in a fortnight or so), some wolverine will become contemptuous enough of the fire smell which it at first dreaded, and will venture into the deserted house to steal. 

We remained about a week in the camp on the wooded creek-head where we had made our first kill, and then we were forced to leave it on account of the absence of caribou in that neighborhood, and by the fact that I one day happened to kill four animals a long way to the eastward in a country where game signs were more numerous. Moving to these better pastures was a matter of nearly a day's walk, for we traveled heavy laden with the caribou fat and skins that were too precious to risk leaving behind with the meat. Traveling at this time of year is particularly pleasant, for while the days are still warm, the placid nights are cool and the power of the mosquito has been broken. There are few things in one's experience in the North that are so pleasant to remember as these autumn hunts, when the camp is pitched among a clump of spruce trees at the bottom of some ravine, and when at the end of a day's hunt you can gather around a crackling fire in the enveloping darkness, for the four-months' summer day is just over. The occasional howl of a wolf in the near shadow lends an additional romance, especially if, as not seldom happens, the wolves are so numerous and near that the dogs become frightened and gather in a close circle around the fire. Few meals can be more satisfying, either, at the end of a hard day's work, than a caribou head that has been rotated continuously before the fire until it is roasted through, even to the base of the tongue and the center of the brain. The dreams of boyhood seldom come true, but I am not sure that there is not sometimes as much romance about the reality of such evenings as there was about the dreams of Crusoe- like adventures on desert islands.

Range of the Kanghirgyuargmiut. In summer some of them (a few) hunt towards Minto Inlet; some hunt southeast and meet the Puiblirgmiut; most, however, hunt east and meet the Ekallugtogmiut and Ashiagmiut who live “on the east coast of our country, which is not far from here overland, and good sledding because we go by the rivers.” Some join the Ekallugtogmiut for a time and with them visit the Arkilinik (near Baker Lake above the head of Chesterfield Inlet] “where there are trees, and where the people have guns and white men's clothes.” (Have seen many metal articles, one shirt, one red knit woollen hood, etc., brought from these trips. ) They never met the Nagyuktogmiut. One man at least — Hitkoak has been both to the Akilinik and to Umingmuktok.

In the fall they (the Kanghirgyuargmiut] come to Prince Albert Sound and proceed to Banks Island where in winter they live chiefly on bears (some entirely; others partly on seals) off Nelson Head and east of it. When bear hunting they often see Cape Parry [on the mainland to the south ]. Nelson Head can be seen from Parry only from the hill tops, and that rarely, and it is much higher than Parry, so they must hunt almost to the middle of the strait.

They usually have houses on or by the shore when in Banks Island. They often see caribou but “do not know how to hunt them in winter.” They know there are musk-oxen inland but they do not go after them. In spring they return to the Sound and soon scatter to the various hunting places. Those going to the Ekallugtogmiut are already on the way intended starting the day after we came to the village and delayed for us). Those going north towards Minto do not leave the sea till “ the snow gets soft on the ice.” Wednesday, May 17. Have given up going farther in direction of Banks Island, as there are no people that way. Started 3:30 P.M. heading for Cape Back about true southwest. Camped 7:30 P.M. to get chance to write up some of my briefer notes before the fillings-in are forgotten or misremembered. Game. No seals seen on top the ice -- ugrug (bearded seals) are to be expected nearer land and seals are not up yet. Crossed about 400 or 500 caribou tracks, i of them over a week old. Migration seems over, or at least there is a lull. Saw three bands of eight, seven, and three. The latter two Natkusiak tried but got shot at last only three misses on the run at 200 yards. Ptarmigan seen every day, mostly ( or all ?) rock ptarmigan. Crows every day. No snow buntings since leaving Walliraluk. Distance traveled: 12 miles.

Pamiungittok tells : The Banks Island people used to be well off. They killed so many deer and [musk ] oxen that their dried meat sometimes lasted the year round. They got to killing each other. One man killed had relatives in the Sound. For this reason (i.e. because of witchcraft practised by the dead man's relatives in the Sound ) food became scarce [ in Banks Island ); there were no seals for food or fuel and the people died of hunger -those that had not been murdered in the feuds. This happened some fifteen years ago i.e. when Agleroittok (who is now about twenty - five) was a boy but [after] his two brothers (were] grown up.

It is a theory which has been much in vogue among ethnologists that the fundamental reason back of the system of Eskimo taboos is that they are intended to keep the sea industries away from the land industries and the sea animals away from the land animals; the theory being that the Eskimo were once inland dwellers and accustomed only to land animals and hunting methods suited to the land, and that when they came down to the sea they found its requirements and its animal life so different from that of the land to which they were used that they conceived it necessary to keep the two rigidly apart and that taboos were therefore established. We have elsewhere pointed out that the western Eskimo consider that sudden death, pestilence, or famine will follow upon the sewing of caribou skin garments within a certain number of days after one of the large sea mammals has been killed. It is true among many tribes of Eskimo that caribou skin garments must not be made or mended on the sea ice. The flesh of caribou and of seals must not, among some tribes, be eaten at the same time, nor must the flesh of caribou be eaten on the sea at all. Under other circumstances when both may be eaten, they will have to be cooked in separate utensils and certain ceremonies have to be performed to cancel, as it were, the evil effects that might otherwise ensue. 

Here, however, everything was different. Not only did these seal hunters engage in the cutting up of the animals, but the meat was taken home and cooked in the same pots in which seal meat had been cooked and eaten; and not only the same day that seal meat had been eaten and the seals had been killed, but the seal meat and caribou meat were actually eaten at the same meal by the same individuals. One old man, however, said that he knew that it was not right to boil caribou meat in the same pot in which seal meat had been boiled unless you suspended the pot by a different string. His wife therefore took off the old greasy string which had served as a bale for the stone pot, braided a new sinew string, and swung the pot by that over the lamp. These Eskimo have various taboos relating to seal and to caribou, but none of those that I have seen in use or heard of, except in the case of this one incident of the string, had any tendency to keep the two apart.

When about four miles from the eastern end of the lake we left it, striking off on the north side to make a short cut along the southern side of some steep hills which run east towards the Coppermine. We were traveling now on high ground and could see south across the valley of the Kendall bands of caribou grazing about six miles away. We accordingly camped, for our meat had about run out and it seemed well to replenish our stores. 

I happened at this juncture to be suffering from a chafed foot on account of having worn a badly made stocking the day we left home. Dr. Anderson and Natkusiak therefore undertook to hunt, and I stayed at home to give my foot a chance to recover. Tannaumirk, who was a fair seamstress, also stayed at home mending boots and stockings and incidentally telling me folk-lore stories which I wrote down in the original language as he told them. Tannaumirk could never be relied upon for an enterprise of moment, but he had many good qualities, among which were an unvarying cheerfulness and an inexhaustible fund of folk-lore tales, songs, and charms, which he had at first, like the rest of his countrymen, been loath to repeat to me on account of being used to having white men make game of him for doing so. But now that he had found that I had a real interest in such things he never tired of telling them. 

In the evening when our hunters came home they reported having seen caribou in great numbers, but they had not had the best of luck. Dr. Anderson had shot two and Natkusiak had failed to get any. It had been a bright sunshiny day and Dr. Anderson had carelessly gone without glasses, with the result that he was slightly snow blind the following morning. 

Seeing that the subject has been mentioned, it may be worthwhile to say that we have tried glasses of all colors and makes and have found the amber ones, made on the same principle as light filters for cameras, to be far superior to blue, green, plain smoked, or any other variety. The Eskimo goggles,which are made of pieces of wood with two narrow slits for the eyes, each about large enough for a half-dollar to be slipped through it, are satisfactory in that they do not cloud over and that they protect the eyes from snow-blind ness; but the difficulty with them is that the range of vision is so restricted that it is as if you were looking out through a pair of key holes in a door. This is especially troublesome on rough ice or uneven ground, where you keep stubbing your toe against every obstacle, for through the narrow slits you can see what is in front of your feet only by looking directly down. 

As my chafed foot was not completely recovered yet, and as Dr. Anderson was snow-blind, it fell to Natkusiak and Tannaumirk to go for the meat of the caribou Dr. Anderson had shot. It was an other cold, clear day as it had been the day before, and it furnished us with yet another example of the fact that Eskimo do not have com passes in their heads, for although the caribou had been killed and cached only about seven miles away from camp, Natkusiak was unable to find them in an all-day search and the two of them returned home after dark with an empty sled. This meant loss of valuable time, and worst of all, the consumption by us and our dogs of the few remaining pounds of dried meat we had brought with us from home. It is of course always wise to eat your green meat first and keep the light and condensed dried meat to the last. 

The place where the two deer were cached was plainly visible with the glasses from our camp, so that it seemed likely that the next day Natkusiak and Tannaumirk would be able to find it, which it turned out that they did. We had delayed so long now, however, that two caribou were hardly sufficient meat to go on with, so that I went across the Horton River a mile or two east of where the Eskimo went to get the cached meat, and shot three caribou and a fine specimen of white wolf. This wolf was not only fat and excellent eating, but its skin was of great value, either scientifically or commercially;-scientifically because the animal is rare, and commercially because the Eskimo of the Mackenzie district and therefore the members of our own party value the skin highly as trimming for their winter coats. A wolfskin of the type which the Eskimo most admire can, when cut into strips, be sold for as much as twelve foxskins, which being translated into dollars at the prices quoted in 1912 would mean from one hundred to one hundred and twenty dollars for each wolfskin. Natkusiak and Tannaumirk heard my shooting when I bagged the three caribou, and after discovering the cached meat they came over and helped me skin, and took on their sled some of the meat. The next day we spent in hauling the rest of the meat to camp and in making a platform cache upon which to leave behind what we could not take with us. Besides meat, we left also in this cache the valuable wolfskin and the skins of two caribou which we intended for scientific specimens. We knew very well that this cache would not be safe from wolverines, but counted on the rarity of those animals in these parts for a chance to get back before everything had been destroyed. The wolves and foxes, we knew, would be unable to steal from a seven-foot high platform.