Eskimo Girls and Part of Crew of Steamship Eric at Upernavik, Greenland

Upernavik is the northern most Danish trading-post in Greenland. Greenland, as you recall, belongs to the Danes, as does also Iceland. Little is known about the northern regions of the country; but the brave sailors of northern Europe early discovered Iceland and Greenland, and probably planted colonies on some of the other islands north of the mainland of North America. The word Greenland hardly describes the country. Whiteland would be a better name because most of it is covered the greater part of each year with ice and snow. Still, on the southern parts some farming and a bit of stockraising are carried on by inhabitants. The center of interest here is the Eskimos. These girls are in the native costume that the Eskimos wear about trading-posts. Where white men have not yet come they dress themselves altogether in the skins of the animals which they kill. They are a very simple people in their mode of living and in their thinking. They are found in the northern regions extending entirely across North America from Greenland to Alaska. They are supposed to number not more than 40,000, one-fourth of these being in Greenland. They call themselves "Inweet," which means, in their tongue, native men. In winter their houses are made of snow and ice. In summer they hunt the reindeer, and in winter they get their food from the sea. They are very fond of fats and eat tallow candles as greedily as an American boy would eat a piece of chocolate. They have boats called "kayaks," made sometimes of a framework of bones covered with skins. Keystone ID: 13329 Note: All titles, descriptions, and location coordinates are from the original Keystone Slide documentation as supplied by the Keystone View Company. No text has been edited or changed.