The skin boat, propelled by the oars of the women, approached the shores. On the bundles of caribou skins which were piled up in the stern, steering cautiously through the floes of drift ice that dotted the surface of the sea, sat Pakkak, the boat-owner. The boat was heavily laden and a strong tide was running so that the women had to exert themselves, two on each oar, to make headway. Pakkak’s son accompanied the boat in his kayak. He had been out seal hunting in order to keep the traveling party supplied with provisions. The seals lay on the narrow deck of his boat which zig-zagged swiftly through the water, propelled by the strokes of the single paddle which he held in the middle, and which struck the water, now at the right and now at the left.