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National Geographic : 1897 Apr
Contents
A SUMMER VOYAGE TO THE ARCTIC $100,000 annually. Almost every village is provided with a church and a school, and the language taught is not the Danish, but that spoken by the natives themselves. The great majority of the Eskimos can read and write and are nominally, if not actually, christianized. Such a policy could hardly have been carried out in any region less isolated than Greenland. Whether or not their contact with civilization has been beneficial to the Greenlanders, it is probable that the continuance of the Danish system is their only salvation, for if the Danes were to withdraw, the wealth of this region in fisheries and hunting would soon attract a population that would so far interfere with the life and pursuits of the Eskimos as to cause their early extinction. These Greenland Eskimos, although they have been in contact with civilization for 250 years and are largely intermixed with foreign blood, have retained many of their original modes of life. The more pure-blooded are an intelligent-looking people, with smooth, round features and frank, open countenances; they are short in stature and have straight, black hair. They ordinarily live in flat-roofed houses, built of rocks and turf, often contain ing but a single room, with a sleeping-bench at one end and a long, low entrance for keeping out the cold in winter. In sum mer they often live in tents, moving from place to place. They A GREENLAND FAMILY
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