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Hunters and Herders: Chukchi and Siberian Eskimo Navigation Across Snow and Frozen Sea

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 October 2009

David H. Lewis  and
Mimi George
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Extract

The tip of the Chukotskiy Peninsula in the Soviet Far East is 86 km from mainlandAlaska and its mountains are clearly visible from St Lawrence Island. It is a ruggedtreeless land that straddles the Arctic Circle between the Bering Sea and the ArcticOcean. In winter it is snow-covered and the sea stays frozen until May.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Navigation , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , January 1991 , pp. 1 - 10
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Navigation 1991

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References

NOTES AND REFERENCES

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5 Perival Baza is a stout building heated by two enormous Russian coal stoves. There are sleeping platforms in the living rooms, a snow porch and storage areas. A wind generator is backed up (rather redundantly, we thought) by a diesel generator. The base stands on the bank of the Ioniveyem river, near where it empties into the head of the 100 km-long Kolyuchinskaya Gulf.Google Scholar
6Yarangas are great pyramidal tents, open at the apex where the poles come together, and with vertical side walls to shoulder height. They are mostly canvas-covered, although one that we slept in was made largely of skin. The main tent is unheated - floored by snow in winter. Here, all the cooking is done. The inner rectangular tented room (or polog), which can accommodate five adults comfortably, is made from some twenty reindeer skins and is floored with split walrus or mukluk seal hide, over a layer of tundra grasses. In the summer, the fur side of the skins face inwards, while in the winter the fur side faces outward. The polog is lit by candles and its only heating is a home-made kerosene wick lamp (seal oil in the old days). Yet even in weather of -40 °C, this remarkable dwelling is warm and cosy, for the occupants' warmth and moist breath transpires through the pores of the reindeer skins to the outside fur, where it freezes and is beaten off in the morning.Google Scholar