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Kimes Entry Number
113
Original Date
7-13-1881
Publication
San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin, July 13, 1881
Page/Column
p. 1, cols. 2-3
Recommended Citation
Muir, John, "On the Siberian Coast. The Corwin Enters the Arctic-First News of the Missing Whalers-A Story of Death and Disaster-In the Ice Pack-Over the Ice in an Esquimo Sleigh-Reluctance of Esquimos to Leave Their Homes. Steamer Corwin, Kapkan, Siberia, May 31, 1881." (1881). John Muir: A Reading Bibliography by Kimes, 1986 (Muir articles 1866-1986). 177.
https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmb/177
William and Maymie Kimes Annotation
One morning, anchored near an Eskimo village, Muir writes: ""It was blowing and snowing at the time, and the poor storm-beaten row of huts seemed inexpressibly dreary through the drift. Nevertheless, out of them came a crowd of jolly, well-fed people, dragging their skin canoes which they shoved over the rim of stranded ice that extended along the shore, and were soon alongside the steamer, offering ivory, furs, sealskin boots, etc., for tobacco and ammunition."" Farther north, when purchasing dogs from the natives and trying to enlist them as drivers, Muir describes a sleigh ride to visit the village. ""Away we sped over the frozen ceiling of the sea, two rows of tails ahead .... But the wolfish dogs and drivers seemed to regard it all as a regular turnpike, and jogged merrily on, up one side of a tilted block or slab and down the other ... swishing around sideways on squinted cakes, and through pools of water and sludge in blue craggy hollows .... ""Upon their arrival, Muir notes that ""the women and children and old men ... came out to meet us, received us kindly, showing us to good seats on reindeer skins, and making good-natured efforts to return our salutations.""