At last the great day arrives when, with much shouting and bustle, the sleds are loaded and the dogs harnessed. Each hunter and his wife assemble and pack their belongings—the lamp, the cooking pot, the box of small tools, the large knife for building (i.e., for cutting out blocks of snow), spears, lines, spare skins for clothing, etc., etc., etc. The baby is popped into the mother’s hood; the boy takes up his station by the team, to learn to drive and manage it, and with many a shout, much touching of noses in farewell, cracking of whips, laughter and joking, each outfit pulls out and drives away, off into the frozen bay. The old folk are left behind in the village, to await the end of the season, to dress the skins brought in to them every now and again by boys returning from the camps. Sealmeat abounds; everyone gorges to Eskimo repletion and lives in luxury. The ground is covered with skins, pegged out to dry in the sun, prior to being scraped, washed, and prepared for making up. The newly flensed hide is first freed from its inner layer of fat and blubber, and this is rendered down for oil for the lamps. The fur is then washed with warm water to remove the grease. Then small holes are pierced all round the edge of the skin, and the whole is pegged out to its full extent on a frame, or merely on the ground, to dry and sweeten and bleach in the genial brightness of the arctic spring day. After this process, the inner membrane is first pared off, and the skin is ready to be tailored. Everyone left behind in the village on shore is kept busy at this sort of work. As the spring sealing season wears on towards the arctic summer, an entire change comes over the activities of the tribesfolk. They have, now, to prepare for the long trail inland to the feeding ground of the deer. Stacks of provisions are accumulated, and the boats and kyaks got ready for the trip to the head of the fiord, whence the expedition will make its start. The framework of the umiaks is carefully examined, and new pieces put in where required. All thongs and lashings are strengthened or renewed; secondary skins in former times were prepared as boat coverings, to be discarded when they became so waterlogged as to check the pace. As a rule, one of these large travelling boats is owned and shared by several families, and will contain the whole of their effects. At length these preparations are complete. The day comes when a general packing up absorbs all the energies of the tribe. Tents are struck and folded away at the bottom of the boat, together with big consignments of sealskin buckets and hunting weapons. The women ship the ponderous and unhandy oars, children and dogs pile in on top of everything, and the men take up their travelling stations fore and aft, in readiness to defend the transport from any sort of attack, or to launch a harpoon at any likely prey.