Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 2.djvu/131

112 From the appearance of its banks, there are times when the stream is five times the size of the present. Probably in July this annually occurs. The banks are of boulders the first two miles up; thence, in some cases, boulders and grass. Two miles up from where it enters the sea, on the east side, is the neck of a plain, which grows wider and wider as it extends back. It looks from the point where I am as if it were of scores and scores of acres. Thence, on the east side, as far as I can see, there is a ridge of mountains. On the west side of the river, a plain of a quarter to half a mile wide. This is a great salmon river, and so known in this country among the Innuits. At our encampment I picked up the vertebræ of a salmon, the same measuring twenty-one inches, and a piece of the tail gone at that. "On returning from my ramble this afternoon up Sylvia Grinnell River, saw the wolves again on the other side. They have been howling and barking—Innuit dog-like—all day. I hear them now filling the air with their noise, making a pandemonium of this beautiful place. I now await the return of Koojesse, Kooperneung, and Koodloo, when I hope to have them accompany me with the boat into every bay and to every island in these head-waters of the heretofore called 'Frobisher Strait.' "The hunting-party has not yet returned; possibly it may continue absent a week. When these Innuits go out in this way they make no preparations, carry no tupic or extra clothing with them. The nights now are indeed cold; near and at the middle of the day, and for four hours after, the sun is hot. This afternoon I started with my coat on, but, getting to the top of the hill, I took it off and left it. "August 27th,—A splendid sun and a calm air this day. To-morrow I hope to be off, even if Koojesse and party are not back, looking here and there, and taking notes of the country; I can man a boat with the Innuit ladies here if I can do no better. Puto came in with her infant on her back, and in her hand a dish of luscious berries that she had picked this afternoon, presenting the same to me. Of course