The people from Nuwŭk travel straight across Elson Bay to the south till they reach nearly the same region. Some parties from Nuwŭk also hunt in the rough country between Kulugrua and Ikpĭkpûñ. As the sledges are heavily laden with camp equipage, provisions and oil for the lamps, they travel slowly, taking four or five days for the journey, stopping for the night with tolerable regularity at certain stations where the first party that travels over the trail build snow huts, which are used by those who follow them. At the rivers they are scattered in small camps of four or five families, about a day’s journey apart. As well as we could learn these camps are in regularly established places, where the same people return every year, if they hunt at all. It even seemed as if these localities were considered the property of certain influential families, who could allow any others they pleased to join their parties.[N370] It is certain, at all events, that the people of Utkiavwĭñ did not hunt on the Ikpĭkpûñ with the men of Nuwŭk. At this season they live entirely in snow huts, often excavated in the deep drifts under the river bluffs, and the men hunt deer while the women, as before, catch fish in Kuaru and Kulugrua. None are taken in Ikpĭkpûñ. (See above, p. 58.) [Footnote N370: Dr. Richardson believes that the hunting grounds of families are kept sacred among the Eskimo. Searching Expedition, vol. 1, pp. 244, 351. See also, the same author’s paper, New Philosophical Journal, vol. 52, p. 323.] Deer are generally very plentiful at this season, though sometimes, as happened in February, 1883, there comes a warm southerly wind which makes them all retreat farther inland for a few days. They are generally hunted by chasing them on snowshoes, in the manner already described, but with much better chances of success, since when a number of hunters are out in the same region the deer are kept moving, so that a herd started by one hunter is very apt to run within gunshot of another. The natives have generally very good success in this spring hunt. Two men who were hunting on shares for the station killed upward of ninety reindeer in the season of 1883. A great deal of the meat is, of course, consumed on the spot, but a good many deer are brought home frozen. They are skinned and brought home whole, only the heads and legs being cut off. The latter are disjointed at the knee and elbow. These frozen carcasses are usually cut up with a saw for cooking. At this season the does are pregnant, and many good-sized fetuses are brought home frozen. We were told that these were excellent food, though we never saw them eaten. For the first two or three days after the return of the deer hunters to the village all the little boys are playing with these fetuses, which they set up as targets for their blunt arrows.