The Curse of the Viking Grave by Farley Mowat

tent under tuktu robes.”
    Too sleepy to be bothered by the lack of privacy, Jamie and Awasin shrugged off their outer clothing and crawledin. Peetyuk followed, then Kakut and Bellikari. Angeline and the Eskimo woman snuggled into their own corner of the communal bed. The last fat lamp flickered and went out and there was silence in the camp of the Ihalmiut.

 
    CHAPTER 10
    Innuit Ku
    E XHAUSTED BY THE TREK NORTHWARD and by the late night, the boys and Angeline slept so soundly they did not waken until the morning was well along. When they came crawling sleepily out from under the robes it was to find the big tent deserted. Pulling on their clothing, they went outside.
    The scene which met their eyes was one of monumental confusion. People were running about in all directions, carrying loads here and there, dragging dogs toward sleds, shouting, laughing, and generally getting in one another’s way. Children raced around amongst the older people, pursuing fleeing dogs. Where five tents had stood the night before now there was only Kakut’s. The rest were reduced to bundles of sticks and mounds of deer hides.
    â€œWhat on earth’s happening?” Jamie asked Peetyuk.
    â€œWe go my mother’s camp today,” Peetyuk explained. “All people come along. Time to leave small camps, go Innuit Ku for big camp. Soon ice gone then deer not able walk all over plains. Must cross rivers at narrow places. People go there, make big hunt with kayaks.”
    Kakut joined them, and at his gesture they followed towhere his wife was tending a small fire of moss and twigs. A big iron kettle hung over it, simmering and hissing. The Eskimo woman smiled a greeting, then dipped out chunks of boiled meat which she handed to them without benefit of plates. The meat was hot, and Jamie was soon juggling his piece from hand to hand.
    â€œThis is what I call a breakfast on the run,” he mumbled as he burned his lips on the meat. “But good, mind you,” he hastened to add as Peetyuk threw him a sharp look.
    Awasin grinned. “You were not so fussy last winter when we lived at Hidden Valley. I think you ate your breakfast with your fingers there—and raw sometimes.”
    â€œI could get our tin plates from the cariole,” Angeline suggested.
    â€œNo, sister,” Awasin told her. “These people do not use plates. We should not make them feel the lack by using ours.”
    Breakfast did not take long, and soon the boys were wandering about the camp with Peetyuk as their guide. They looked with keen interest at the dogs: magnificent big beasts which were nearly twice the size of woodland huskies, and strikingly patterned in black and white. Awasin was curious to know why the Eskimos did not keep their dogs tied when not in use. He also commented on their good nature.
    â€œThat why we not tie,” Peetyuk explained. “If you are dog tied up all time, you get mean. Eskimo dog free like Eskimo. So he be happy like Eskimo.”
    The boys also admired the sleds, which although built like Peetyuk’s were much larger. Kakut’s sled was twentyfeet long, composed of two massive runners joined by a dozen short cross-pieces lashed across the top. Jamie whistled when he saw the size of this sled and the enormous load which had been piled on it. He was frankly skeptical that it could ever be moved by dog power, but his skepticism vanished when Kakut and Bellikari hitched up their team of eighteen dogs. These were not hitched one behind the other in forest style. Each was on a separate trace so that the whole team could spread out fanlike ahead of the sled.
    The last thing to go on Kakut’s sled (his tent had already been pulled down and packed by Bellikari and his mother) was a strange-looking object some fifteen feet in length. It consisted of an open latticework of very small curved willow ribs, fastened with rawhide to a number of long stringers of thin spruce. It looked like the