Page 64 - Four Thousand Years Ago by Geoffrey Bibby

the polar seas people are living, huddled in half-underground sod
and stone houses in the dim twilight of the arctic day, warm and
cozy in the clear light and comforting heat of their blubber lamps.
They sleep on while the dawn of the millennium sweeps round

the world, for what is there to wake for? In the caches raised
on poles out of reach of wolves and foxes there are provisions for
weeks ahead, whole carcasses of reindeer and seal, and stocks of

frozen fish. For the moment there is no need to hunt. It will be
long, though, to the spring thaw, and it would be wise, if the

wind drops, to go out to a breathing hole in the ice and, if the
gods are kind, to harpoon a seal. One can, after all, never have
too many seals, and the winter settlement is sited on the sea­

shore with that very end in view.
In the meantime the womenfolk can prepare food over the
lamps or at the hearth just within the doorway. And they can

dress furs with their flint scrapers and sew them with bone awls
and sinew threads into clothing which will withstand the bitter
cold of the long wait by the breathing hole.

But when the gales rage, and the men are inside the rectan­
gular houses, they sit around, desultorily repairing harpoon

thongs or fashioning new points of bone and walrus ivory, or new
knives or scrapers of flint or slate. There is time to spare in the
winter, and they talk of the long days of summer, recollecting

the year before and planning the year ahead.
When the ice goes out they will move, for then the seals can

no longer be approached by stealth, and they must go abroad to
find the reindeer. They will pull the roof from their house before
they leave, to let the summer sun and rain sweeten the interior

after a winter’s habitation. And they will pack their skin tents and
spears and harpoons in the big skin boats. It happens that they

must travel far to find the reindeer. But it often happens that they
travel farther yet just for the fun of traveling. For though they
feel safer with a herd in the neighborhood, they can always get

along on fish and hares and berries; or they may sight a walrus
or a school of right whales and harpoon a feast for the whole boat
family for several days. So they cover great distances in the sum­

mer along the arctic coasts, and think little of crossing from Si-
eria to Alaska, or from Baffin Land to Greenland, or from Nor-