File:Hunters of the great north (1922) (14771474204).jpg

Identifier: huntersofgreatno01stef (find matches)
Title: Hunters of the great north
Year: 1922 (1920s)
Authors: Stefansson, Vilhjalmur, 1879-1962
Subjects: Eskimos Hunting
Publisher: New York, Harcourt, Brace and Company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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rd them from all sides and gradually they began tosoak in. I spent my first arctic winter and summer with Eskimoswho lived mainly by fishing. If I applied myself, Ifound I could fish as well as they, nor did that surprisethem for they were all of the opinion that white men aregood at catching any kind of water game with hook ornet. To see a white man do well at any such work, fromherring fishing to whaling, did not surprise them. Theyknew also that white men can catch seals in nets. Butwhite men were unable to get seals that had crawled outon top of the ice, for then the tactics of getting them hadto be those of the hunter and not the fisherman. During my first summer I found I could kill ducksand geese as well as the Eskimos. This did not surprisethem either, for it was in accordance with their generalview. White men were good with fowling pieces andcould even kill rabbits. By the fall of 1908 (my second year in the Arctic) Ihad, in spite of myself, become obsessed with the idea that
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o Z z HOW I LEARNED TO HUNT CARIBOU 245 a white man cannot be a good hunter, and that it is notsafe for him to be out alone away from the wise Eskimos.Had any one put it to me in just those words I might haveargued against it, for my reason was unconvinced. Butsubconsciously I had absorbed a profound mistrust of myown ability to take care of myself. Later in September, 1908, a party of us were on ourway by sledge east along the north coast of Alaska. Ihad one white companion, Storker Storkerson, with whomI was destined to be continuously associated through mostof the following nine years of polar work. He was asailor and full of confidence in himself in every way,except that like me he had been talked into the belief thathe would not be able to make a living hunting and thathe was in danger of losing his way if he got separatedfrom his Eskimo guides. The Eskimos of my party were a middle-aged man, byname Kunaluak, and my old friend, Ilavinirk, with hiswife Mamayauk and their young dau

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