Alaska field notes, v4468
Page 163
Image from the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Contributed by Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley. | www.biodiversitylibrary.org
Transcription
June 1 Point Barrow, Alaska there is an unmistakable component of the village aroma, mile from any past or present settlement. June 7 I have been reading an interesting article on the mammals, people, and the country in the Anaktuvik Pass region. This pass is the main migration route of the caribou through the Brooks range, and is at an elevation of only about 2000' in this mountain basin that is generally 6 to 8 thousand feet high. The main river of the pass drops only 200 feet in 15 miles; a similar river runs out the other way into the Yukon drainage. Incidentally when I came to Barrow we took the special route through this pass because of brass on the plane. Took pictures too, which were much more satisfactory down in the canyon than any view from above. The article appears in Arctic magazine for December, 1951. What I was going to relate was the story of a primitive method of taking wolves that the Inland People, as they are known, used before firearms were introduced. Pete Sovalike told me the same story. The eskimos would take a piece of bone several inches long, sharpen the ends, and twist or roll it up in a ball of meat. This was bound and allowed to freeze.