Page:Morgan Philips Price - Siberia (1912).djvu/185

Rh fur, for many of the more independent and enterprising of these North Siberian colonists leave their original villages and go forth into the wild country, where they find the native nomad Finns on their own ground, and where they often live with them a semi-nomadic existence themselves.

Across the toundras and through the forests there are certain tracks, well known to these Siberians, and along which they proceed by means of sledges and sometimes on snowshoes. Over the unending level plain of conifer forests and mossy swamp these pioneers push their way, travelling partly by boat along the rivers during the summer, and the rest of the way by sledge through the forests during the winter. Here, perhaps, in some open spot where two rivers meet, they build their log-huts and live with their wives and families throughout the greater part of the year. To these little trading stations come the nomad Samoyedes and Ostiaks, generally in the winter months after they have finished their sable-hunting. Wandering south from the toundras with their reindeer they pitch their encampments of birch-bark wigwams in these flat mossy wastes. Here, sheltered by scrubby forest, they make their winter quarters hard by the log-houses and stores of the Siberian fur trader. During these winter months the natives barter the products of their autumn hunting for such articles as flour, tobacco and tea, which the Siberian keeps in his little store. And so Siberian and Finn are thrown together for many a long winter's day, during which the sun rises only to set again, and the bitter Arctic winter holds the surrounding forest and mossy wastes in its snowy grip.