The skin with which the canoe is covered
is exclusively that of the _neitiek_, prepared by scraping off the hair
and fat with an _ooloo_, and stretching it tight on a frame over the
fire; after which and a good deal of chewing, it is sown on by the women
with admirable neatness and strength. Their paddles have a blade at each
end, the whole length being nine feet and a half; the blades are covered
with a narrow plate of bone round the ends to secure them from
splitting; they are always made of fir, and generally of several pieces
scarfed and woolded together.
In summer they rest their canoes upon two small stones raised four feet
from the ground, and in winter on a similar structure of snow; in one
case to allow them to dry freely, and in the other to prevent the
snowdrift from covering, and the dogs from eating them. The difficulty
of procuring a canoe may be concluded from the circumstance of there
being at Winter Island twenty men able to manage one, and only seven
canoes among them. Of these, indeed, only three or four were in good
repair; the rest being wholly or in part stripped of the skin, of which
a good deal was occasionally cut off during the winter, to make boots,
shoes, and mittens for our people.
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