Dean,
This is a good line of enquiry. The eskimos know many things and I
wish we could find out more.
Jan
Jan,
I think that they " knew." The modern ones have been disconnected, methinks.
I think that even by the beginning of the last century, they still knew.
You mention in your book about an Eskimo legend, where you quote Captain
Richardson:
" The Eskimos of Point Barrow have a tradition, reported by Mr. Simpson,
surgeon of the Plover in 1832, of some of their tribe having been carried
North on ice broken up in a Southerly gale, and arriving, after many nights,
at a hilly country inhabited by people like themselves, speaking the Eskimo
language, and by whom they were well received. After a long stay, one spring
in which the ice remained without movement, they returned without mishap to
their own country and reported their adventures. An obscure indication of
land to the North was actually perceived at the masthead of the Plover when
off Point Barrow."
Dean