stefansson-wrangel-09-25-004-019

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a small umiak so that when the ice left the beach we could go after walrus,
he and I. But he thought a kayak (one-man skin hunting boat) would be better
so he built one, covering it with sealskins. Later we wished we had an umiak
instead, for when we had nothing to do and could get no more ducks we oould
see walrus drifting by offshore by the hundreds sleeping on the ice cakes.
The Eskimo was too scared to go after them in the kayak, for he was always
used to hunting them from an umiak. With an umiak there is no trouble about
getting meat. We had not tried to save or bring ashore the big umiak on
the Karluk. It was the intention to let her sink with the ship, but after
the Karluk sank she was floating around in the water and I had got permission
from the Captain to cut out of her a few pieces of leather for boot soles
These proved very useful later in Wrangell Island, but If we had brought it
with us the boat itselfwe would have had no trouble in killing walrus
enough to support us for years on Wrangel Island.

About this time I made a ladder from driftwood to get
eggs from the cliff, but after I packed it over to the rookery I found it
about twenty feet too short and could get only twenty-five eggs. Later I
made another which was about the right length and McKinlay, the Eskimo and
I took it over and tried to raise it, but it was too heavy for us and we
had to abandon the idea. Tens of thousands of eggs and we could not get
one of them! I used the short ladder in every place that I could and got
small lots of fifteen and twenty and twenty-five eggs.

July third the wind turned to the southwest, blowing
strong, and the ice went off from the beach^{and disappeared.}, ending our sealing and duck
shooting. The ammunition was getting low and we could not afford to shoot
small game, so we got a net that we had been using for fish, though we never
got any, and brought it out to use as a ^bird seine. The first cast we got about