stefansson-wrangel-09-32-002r

THE FIRST WINTER AND SECOND SUMMER 213

hundred yards of the seal [because of water] so had to do
nothing but hope that the current would change. An
hour or so later Maurer shot a seal about seventy-five
feet from the edge of the firm ice. I took the retriever
and got him to the edge of the slush about thirty feet
from us. The seal then became detached from the
retriever and when under the slush. Although we worked
till dark, we did not see him again. By this time the
other seal had disappeared completely.”

The retriever mentioned by Knight is an Eskimo device
for getting seals that have been shot not too far away in
open water. It consists of a knob of wood about the size of
a grapefruit with several sharp recurved steel hooks
around its circumference and a loop at one end to which
is attached a slender line one hundred or more feet in
length. The line is held coiled in the left hand. With
the right hand you grasp the line about five feet from the
retriever and swing it around your head until it makes
a whizzing noise. You then throw it, paying out the
line as the retriever flies through the air. You should
throw it farther than where the dead seal lies floating
horizontally on the water. You then pull slowly towards
you until the knob is about to slide over the seal, when
you give a sharp jerk and one of the hooks catches in his
hide. You then pull in hand over hand. This brings
the seal to you if there is no slush ice, but the trouble
is that on any but an exceptionally warm day slush does
form along the edge of the firm ice where you are stand-
ing and you are not able to haul the seal right up to you.
In such circumstances we usually make a boat by wrap-
ping a piece of canvas around a sledge, as we have men-
tioned. But, as said above, the Wrangel party does not
seem to have thought this worth the bother, expecting