The lamp gave
forth a smoky, yellow flame. This was the only fireside that little
Pomiuk knew. You and I would not think it a very cheerful one,
perhaps, but Pomiuk was accustomed to cold and he looked upon it as
quite comfortable and cheerful enough.
Ka-i-a-chou-ouk, Pomiuk's father, was a hunter and fisherman, as are
all the Eskimos. He moved his tupek in summer, or built his igloo of
blocks of snow in winter, wherever hunting and fishing were the best,
but always close to the sea.
Here, under the shadow of mighty cliffs and towering, rugged
mountains, by the side of the great water, Pomiuk was born and grew
into young boyhood, and played and climbed among the mountain crags or
along the ocean shore with other boys. He loved the rugged, naked
mountains, they stood so firm and solid! No storm or gale could ever
make them afraid, or weaken them. Always they were the same, towering
high into the heavens, untrod and unchanged by man, just as they had
stood facing the arctic storms through untold ages.
From the high places he could look out over the sea, where icebergs
glistened in the sunshine, and sometimes he could see the sail of a
fishing schooner that had come out of the mysterious places beyond the
horizon.
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