Carnivore Diet

That evening when I came home I found that Palaiyak also, as well as Pannigabluk, was sick. Evidently it was the diet that was telling on them. On our journey up river from the sea we had lived on oil straight, and we had eaten so much of it that by the time we reached our camp we had only a pint or two left in a bag of oil that should, under ordinary circumstances, have lasted us for several months. The meat we had was all lean; we had therefore for some time been living on a diet of exclusively lean meat, which had aggravated the diarrhoea from which Ilavinirk suffered and which had now brought down my two companions. 

Evidently, with two invalided out of three, it was not possible for us to proceed farther with our hunt, and we decided to return home. It was not only the illness of my companions that prompted this, but also the belief that Dr. Anderson and Natkusiak must surely have arrived by now, and I felt that with them to help me, the chances of success in the hunt to the south would be immeasurably greater. 

On our return home, however, there was no sign of Anderson, which caused us worry of two sorts ; for something must have gone wrong with him to keep him away so long, and something was likely to go wrong with us, if he did not come back, with only one able hunter to take care of seven people and six dogs in a country which the caribou seemed to have temporarily abandoned. And the tantalizing thing was to feel that the caribou could not be far away and that if we only had one or two able-bodied men to make up a sled party we were sure to overtake them. Inaction was not to be thought of, however, and Ilavinirk , although he was sick, realized this as keenly as I did, so he urged that we make another attempt to hunt upstream , in which he himself and Palaiyak would follow the river, making camps for me, while I hunted the east bank of the river into the Barren Ground, as I had hunted the west bank through the forest on the first attempt made with Pannigabluk and Palaiyak. On December 22d I happened to think that Natkusiak had, two months before, set some dead-fall traps and baited them with pieces of blubber. I now revisited these traps and found that in some of them the blubber bait was still there. I picked these up and brought them home, and that evening all of us had some fat along with our meat, which did us a considerable amount of good.

I did now what I should have done the day before approached the animals directly, got within two hundred and fifty yards and secured them all . They turned out to be two young bulls and a cow with a calf. I did not stop to skin them, but covered them hastily with snow so as to prevent their freezing quickly, and made for the river as fast as I could , hoping to overtake Ilavinirk before he had moved camp far; for we had agreed in the morning before I left that he was to proceed up river on the presumption that I would be unsuccessful in the day's hunt and get as far south as possible, - we thought the farther south we got, the better our prospects. 

Ilavinirk had gone about the programme energetically , and it was only after about ten miles of hard running that I overtook him getting ready to pitch camp in the mouth of a small creek. Daylight was gone and both Ilavinirk and Palaiyak were played out, so that we had to camp where we were and take the chance of wolverines and wolves stealing our precious meat during the night. The next day, when we went to fetch the meat, we found that a wolverine had eaten up a portion of one of the caribou. We shot the wolverine, and as its meat was much fatter and juicier than the caribou meat, it paid us well for the little it had stolen. 

Our hunt had begun well. There is a saying that “well begun is half done.” In our case well begun was four fifths done, for another week of hunting gave us only one caribou, which I shot by moonlight one early morning the only caribou I have ever shot by moon light, although since then I have killed more than one wolf by night. 

This hunt, like the one before, I broke up rather sooner than I otherwise might, with the idea that Anderson must surely have returned by now and that I would get him and Natkusiak to help me. Considering how sick and weak he was, Ilavinirk’s conduct at this time was worthy of the highest admiration , but of course he could not do the work of a well man. We had hunted south about forty miles without finding the caribou there any more numerous than they were near home. Our return journey took us two days, and we got home on the evening of January 5th, to find that Ander son had not yet arrived . 

On the days between December 28, 1909, and January 8, 1910, there are no entries in my diary, for on every one of those days I was off hunting during the hours of daylight and we had no light in the house at night by which diary entries could be written. We had now been nearly a month without oil or fat of any kind, either for food or for light. But on January 8th the women, after gathering together all the old bones and breaking them up, had succeeded in boiling a little tallow out of them, and by its light I made the diary entries for the past ten days from memory, while the women mended clothes and did other sewing they had been unable to do before for want of light. 

Of our entire seven I was now the only one not actually sick , and I felt by no means well . Doing hard work in cold weather on a diet nearly devoid of fat is a most interesting and uncommon experi ment in dietetics, and may therefore be worth describing in some detail. The symptoms that result from a diet of lean meat are practically those of starvation . The caribou on which we had to live had marrow in their bones that was as blood, and in most of them no fat was discernible even behind the eyes or in the tongue. When we had been on a diet of oil straight, a few weeks before, we had found that with a teacupful of oil a day there were no symptoms of hunger ; we grew each day sleepier and more slovenly, and no doubt lost strength gradually , but at the end of our meals of long - haired caribou skin and oil we felt satisfied and at ease. Now with a diet of lean meat everything was different. We had an abundance of it as yet and we would boil up huge quantities and stuff ourselves with it . We ate so much that our stomachs were actually distended much beyond their usual size — so much that it was distinctly noticeable even outside of one's clothes. But with all this gorging we felt continually hungry. Simultaneously we felt like unto bursts ing and also as if we had not had enough to eat . One by one the six Eskimo of the party were taken with diarrhoea. 

By the 10th of January things were getting to look serious indeed. It was apparent not only that we could not go on indefinitely without fat, but it was also clear that even our lean meat would last only a few days longer. We had on December 11th estimated that we had two months' supplies of meat, and now in a month they were gone. Our estimate had not been really wrong, for if we had had a little fat to go with the meat, it would no doubt have lasted at least sixty days, but without the fat we ate such incredible quantities that it threw all our reckoning out of gear. It was not only that we ate só much, but also the dogs. They had been fed more meat than dogs usually get and still they were nothing but skin and bones, for they could not, any more than we, get along on lean meat only. 

The caribou in the neighborhood were increasing in numbers now and I saw them almost every day, but I had the most outrageous luck. One day, for instance, I saw a band in clear, calm weather ; it was one of those deathly still days when the quietest step on the softest snow can be heard by man or beast for several hundred yards. As the animals were quiet I did not dare to attempt approaching them, thinking that the next day might be cloudy or windy or in some way more suitable to deer- stalking, for it is a noticeable fact that even though the day be practically still, the condition of the air when the sky is clouded is such as to muffle any noise and to make the approach to deer within , say , a hundred yards feasible. The next day was windy, but altogether too windy, for it was one of those blind ing blizzards when it is impossible to see more than forty or fifty feet. Because our condition was desperate, I nevertheless hunted that day and walked back and forth over the place where the caribou had been the day before, knowing that it was possible, although unlikely, that I might fall in with the animals. I did not fall in with them , however, and the next day was a blizzard of the same kind and my hunt had the same result. The third day Ilavinirk and I went out together and found the caribou still, strange to say, in the same spot, but a half mile or so before we came up to them a fawn suddenly appeared on the top of a hill near us and saw us. It is the nature of a frightened caribou to run toward any caribou that are in the neighborhood and to frighten them away also, so that there was nothing for us to do but to shoot this fawn, although we knew that the shooting would scare the large band away, which it did. 

January 11th Ilavinirk and I were again out looking for caribou. He used to accompany me in the morning on the chance of our see ing something near home, but as his strength did not allow a long day's hunt he would return early while I went on as much farther as the daylight allowed. On this day we saw simultaneously to the north of us a caribou on top of one hill and three men on top of another hill. These must be Anderson, Natkusiak , and Pikaluk, we thought, and evidently they were hunting the same caribou that we saw. It was one of those still days, however, so that the chance of shooting him was not great for either party. We headed towards the caribou and so did the three men, but the caribou ran away long before we got near it. 

It turned out that these three men were not the ones we had expected, however, but three Eskimo, one of whom, Memoranna, is well known under the name of Jimmie to those who have read Amundsen's account of the Northwest Passage voyage. The others were Okuk, a Baillie Islands man , and a Mackenzie River “boy,” Tannaumirk, who was really about twenty-five years of age but who has an appearance and a disposition that preclude his being considered as grown up. They had come the 200-mile journey from the Baillie Islands to visit us with the hope of being able to get some caribou skins for clothing. They had had no particular luck so far in their hunts, but they had with them a little seal oil which they immediately offered to share with us. That night, therefore, we had lights again in our house and plenty of oil to eat. It was only a matter of two or three days from that time until all of us were in good form again.

 

Among Eskimos, Europeanization has been longest delayed in the Canadian eastern Arctic, that great region which begins on the mainland about 500 miles east of the Mackenzie at Dolphin and Union Strait and extends to Hudson Bay. There, in Coronation Gulf and Victoria Island, our second expedition, the one of 1908-12, found more than 500 of what are now called Copper Eskimos, most of whom had never seen a white man. A decade later, in the 1920's, the Danish explorer Knud Rasmussen found on the eastern edge of the Copper Eskimo district about twenty who had missed seeing us, and who told him he was the first white man they had ever seen.

The Copper Eskimos, so named because many of their weapons and tools were of native copper, had never dealt with any traders before 1910. They did not even know tea, used no salt, and lived exclusively on flesh foods, eating roots and such only in time of famine. In 1910, they for the first time tasted sugar, given them by the first trader to reach Coronation Gulf, Joseph Bernard. They disliked it. Ten years later they were beginning to use material amounts of European foods, including both sugar and salt. Farther east, in the same section of arctic Canada, are people who first met whites long ago; but, even including them, the Eskimos of this section still are, with respect to food, the least Europeanized of all North Americans.

Memoranna was unable to tell us anything about Dr. Anderson, and now that our party was in fair health again I decided to go at once in search of him. We also needed to replenish our store of oil somehow , for the supply that Memoranna had brought with him was sufficient for a week or two only. There were three places where we had fat cached away; the nearest was about thirty miles downstream, where we had covered up with stones the fat of three grizzly bears killed in the fall, amounting to about a hundred and twenty-five pounds; ten miles farther, at Langton Bay, was the fat of one grizzly bear, one polar bear, and about half of a bearded seal, all together something over two hundred pounds; while at Cape Parry was the blubber which Dr. Anderson had gone to fetch, consisting of three or four hundred pounds that Captain Cottle had given us from the whale killed on the Banks Island voyage. 

I took with me the boy Palaiyak of our own party and engaged Tannaumirk of Memoranna's party to go with us. In three days we reached our first cache of blubber to find it thoroughly rifled by wolverines. A day farther north we found that at Langton Bay a wolverine had gnawed its way through a two-inch pine plank, had entered our storehouse and eaten all but fifteen or twenty pounds of the blubber. This wolverine had lived so well on our stores that he was the fattest animal of his species I have ever seen killed; his meat was correspondingly good eating.

January 21st we arrived at the cabin built by the wreck of the Alexander, where we had stored our belongings in the fall, and found it occupied by our entire party. It was a great relief to find them all there and a great surprise too, at the time. I never realized until I actually saw them how strong had been my inclination to expect that I would never see them again. But although they were all there, they were by no means well, for Dr. Anderson and Pikaluk were both in bed convalescing from pneumonia. They had had a pretty hard time. Pneumonia is a serious thing under any circumstances and especially in such a place as they were in, for not only was the house unsatisfactory, but the food at their disposal was not such as is suited to sick men. Ever since their convalescence had begun they had been hungering especially for fresh meat, and this was a place where no fresh meat was to be had, except a few foxes, for which Natkusiak trapped energetically. On an average he was getting about one fox per day. A stray caribou had wandered out upon the cape about Christmas time, and Natku siak had secured him also, which was a great help to them. Pika luk had been taken sick first, and Dr. Anderson had nursed him for a week, after which he was himself taken sick. 

It was clear that Dr. Anderson and Pikaluk would not be fit for traveling for a month at least, and there was immediate necessity that a sled go back to our people inland with a supply of blubber for them. I therefore dispatched Natkusiak and Palaiyak at once off inland, for now that I had found Dr. Anderson I did not care to leave him again while he was sick. Tannaumirk also stayed with us, for there was no special reason for his going inland.

By the beginning of March Dr. Anderson and Pikaluk were so completely recovered that they volunteered to make the six days' trip south to Langton Bay for the purpose of depositing there the sled load of ammunition and other necessities. It was our intention then, by the 10th of March to proceed inland from Langton Bay where we had wintered and to strike across country thence to the northeast corner of Bear Lake, with the purpose of thereafter working north in the summer down the Coppermine River until we should meet Eskimo. We know now that this would not have been a good plan to follow; it was made impractical by the arrival, March 6th, of Ilavinirk and others of the inland party. 

Ilavinirk's party told a tale of hardships and starvation rather worse than anything through which we had been previously. It had taken Natkusiak and Palaiyak a long time to reach them with the sled load of blubber. I had explained to Natkusiak when he started from Cape Parry that there was every need for hurry, for Ilavinirk's and Memoranna's parties had had practically nothing to eat when I left them. But Natkusiak could not realize that there was any real danger, and I do not think that there would have been any danger had Natkusiak been in Ilavinirk’s place. As it was, however, instead of hurrying, Natkusiak stopped here and there on the way, in one place to catch fish because he had been so long without fish. and in another place to set traps because the trapping was good. Meantime Ilavinirk's and Memoranna's parties had had hard luck in hunting. There were caribou in the country. but the weather was continually bad and their management was not the best. The little food left on hand when I went away soon disappeared, and then followed the larger zoological specimens which I had preserved for Dr. Anderson in the fall. There were nine skins of caribou of both sexes and all ages, which I had taken off carefully with heads, horns, and leg bones, making also careful record of the measurements. These specimens were of great scientific value, for they represented in all probability a new variety of caribou, or if not that, at least caribou from a district where none had previously been taken for scientific purposes. One of these specimens especially was a rare thing. I have been present at the killing of a thousand caribou, and in all that number I have seen only three that were hornless in a season when they should have had horns. In other words, I have seen only three caribou upon the heads of which horns were destined never to grow. One of these I had carefully skinned for Dr. Anderson. In this period of scarcity the head of this rare muley caribou went for food along with the other scientific skins. The heads of all these animals and the leg bones went first and then the skins themselves, as well as other skins which we had intended for clothing. 

It was a period of scarcity not only among the human beings of that district but also among the wolves, all of which were skin poor and two of which died of starvation near our house at a place where their carcasses were found afterwards and eaten by our Eskimo. Pannigabluk was the only member of our party to whom wolf meat was taboo. The rest of us considered wolf, under ordinary circumstances, to be excellent eating. In summer when they are fat and caribou poor, all of us much preferred wolf meat to caribou. But those who tasted them were unanimous in saying that the wolves that died of starvation were no delicacy. 

When Natkusiak finally arrived at the camp on Horton River, the tide had just been turned by Memoranna's success in caribou hunting. From that time everything had gone well, but the two periods of starvation in one winter, which were the first of his entire life, had proved too much for Ilavinirk and his family, for they now came to me and told me that they felt sure that if we went farther east the coming spring, things would go still worse with them. In fact, they would not go east with me and had made up their minds to quit our service and go back to the Mackenzie River, where there was plenty of fish. where tea and tobacco could be had. and where they could attend church service now and then.