V. Post Office UCLUELET “SHELLUBRICATION” A SPECIALTY Shell Products PARKER & ECKSTRAND DODGE, DE SOTO CARS | DODGE TRUCKS CRANBERRY LAKE » WESTVIEW, B.C. Phone 3881 Phone 4331 Phone 4331 Phone 4331 Daily Service to Cranberry and Edgehill, Westview and Grief Point Westview B. C. Powell River Stages Lid. ‘City Transfer (1945) Ltd. EXPERT PIANO MOVING COAL - STORAGE - MOVING HOUSEHOLD FURNITURE CRATED AND DELIVERED ANYWHERE IN B.C. No Job Too Big or Too Small Phone 3141 Cranberry Lake, B.C. Cranberry Hardware TOM AHOLA & SONS General Hardware, Paint, Varnish and Wallpaper, Crockery, Electric Appliances, Stoves, Ranges and Oil Burners Phone 259 Cranberry Lake, Powell River, B.C. great angatkuk of the white kablunats was born. Now the spirits tell me He’s coming to earth again. But because the white man killed Him when He was here before, with their harpoons, and nailed Him to crooked sticks, He’s coming—not to the white people but to the Eskimos.” With guttural cries of abandon, fur- clad hunters and broad-backed women dived through the snow tunnels, dug up their last reserves of frozen meat and filled stone pots that soon were bubbling over fresh-trimmed blubber lamps. In a welter of bear-skins, caribou-hide shinga- bees and sharp-nosed puppies, ragged hunters in torn deerskins, and leathery- faced crones, their teeth worn to the gums from chewing sealskin garments, gazed with unwinking eyes at the leaping figures contorting themselves in the mummery of the dance that was to bring plenty to the igloos of the Kevetukmuits. Takes Up Rote or “Messtan” In the midst of the wild confusion, Neuktuk crawled silently through the snow tunnel and reappeared in a stole of dirty cotton sewn roughly into the shape he'd seen the blackcoat wear, bearing in his mittened hand two wooden poles lashed to form a cross. As throbbing drums dropped to lower tempo, and sweating ghost-dancers viewed the apparition with rolling eyeballs, Neuk- tuk bounded to the snow bench and raised the cross aloft. “Me!” His eyes rolled white in religious frenzy. “I am ‘God’! I’ve been sent back from the Land of Ghosts to save you from your sins.” Aghast at this sudden transformation of one of their own flesh and blood into divine stature, the Eskimos leaping and gyrating about the soot-blackened cavern surveyed the medicine man open-mouthed. GENERAL MERCHANT HARDWARE, FISHING SUPPLIES, BOAT SUPPLIES, BUILDING SUPPLIES, GROCERIES, FRESH MEATS, VEGETABLES, DRYGOODS J. MADDEN Standard Oil Agent B. G Nothing, of course, was impossible to this primitive remnant of the Stone Age, who believed that the spirits of the departed hovered near the corpse waiting {9 enter the body of the first new-born in fant. For a few long, spellbound mo- ments the doubting quailed under the challenging, gaze of their new-found “God”. But the frenzied light in those slanting Oriental orbs caused them ty hurriedly accept the startling statement One by one, guttural voices mingled in a roar of wonderment and acclaim till the contagion transformed the savage emo- tions within that squalid snowhouse into wild fanatical frenzy. Old Peechuk, toss- ing his fur-clad arms into the air, broke into a hymn of praise in which one might have detected a resemblance to that cracked record of Hector Pitchford’s, the trader—*Hallelujah I’m a Bum!” Others hurled themselves forward with renewed frenzy into the dance, while others plunged greasy paws into meat pots and helped themselves to blubbery meat. Only two of that primordial gathering remained unconvinced that a-miracle had been en- acted before their eyes. SMELLS Out Rtivats One was the toothless crone, Nalloniak, whose bird-like eyes surveyed her son-it- law, Neuktuk, with mocking contempt that probed beneath his priestly finery. The other was the fur-clad giant, Kidlap- pik, ace hunter of the tribe who'd travelled and traded with the white kablunats over at Fort Chimo, and whose inscrutable eyes veiled mingled puzzlement and disdain. — The slitted eyes of the Eskimo “God” travelled around the soot-caked walls with probing and suspicious glances till they encountered his mother-in-law, her nut cracker nose and chin almost meeting over the stem of her evil-smelling pipe. The TRAVELERS’ HOTEL THOMAS RICKSON, Proprietor Licensed Premises WESTVIEW, B.C. | Page Forty-two THE SHOULDER STRAI 7 |