The thread is sinew from seal flesh, since it must be derived from the same source as the skins, to ensure the same degree of shrinking and stretching. The seams are double stitched, first through the skin only, leaving the membrane untouched, and then oversewing the latter, so as to make them perfectly watertight. The moistened skins are then loosely applied to the framework; as they shrink and dry they fit to it exactly, and form a light, drum-tight covering over the whole. It is part of the man’s job to fit the wooden rim to the opening on top, and to make the loops which serve to secure his weapons. He carries a three-pronged bird spear on the left hand side in front of him; on the right is his sealing spear, and between the two is a small round tray for the coiled seal line fixed to the detachable spearhead. Behind him on the left is his nixie or hook, on the right a heavy harpoon for striking walrus or the larger creatures he may encounter, between the two and immediately behind him an inflated sealskin with the end of his sealing line attached. Thus equipped, the canoe is complete, a thing of pride to its owner, which will last all his life and be handed down to his sons and their sons after him. The sealing spear has an ivory (or nowadays a steel) butt for breaking ice, and acts as an ice chisel. Its shaft consists of a piece of driftwood, its long keen point is made from part of the jawbone or rib of the whale, and its detachable barbed head is of steel or ivory. The long line attached to this is a stout strip of white whale hide. The harpoon, too, is of wood and ivory, as also is the long hunting knife and the small kit of lesser tools without which the hunter seldom moves. All these things are made during the endless winter evenings, while sitting round the seal oil lamps in the igloo, or on stormy days when the Arctic blizzard obliterates the world without. (There is an interesting collection of Eskimo dresses and implements and utensils to be seen in the Ethnological Gallery at the British Museum; but perhaps even more representative a one is that in the Natural History Museum in New York.)