brador, but a
long way to the south of Nachvak Bay where Pomiuk's people lived. He
could speak English as well as Eskimo, and acted as interpreter for
the strangers.

This Eskimo explained that the white men had come from America to
invite some of the Labrador Eskimos to go to America to see their
country. People from all the nations of the world, he said, were to
gather there to meet each other and to get acquainted. They were to
bring strange and wonderful things with them, that the people of each
nation might see how the people of other nations made and used their
things, and how they lived. They wished the Labrador Eskimos to come
and show how they dressed their skins and made their skin clothing and
skin boats, and to bring with them dogs and sledges, and harpoons and
other implements of the hunt.

The white men promised it would be a most wonderful experience for
those that went. They agreed to take them and all their things on the
ship and after the big affair in America was over bring them back to
their homes, and give them enough to make them all rich for the rest
of their lives.

The Eskimos were naturally quite excited with the glowing
descriptions, the opportunity to travel far into new lands, and the
prospect of wealth and happiness offered them when they again returned
to their Labrador homes. Pomiuk and his mother were eager for the
journey, but his father did not care to leave the land and the life he
knew. He decided that he had best remain in Labrador and hunt; but he
agreed that Pomiuk's mother might go to make skin boots and clothing,
and Pomiuk might go with her and take the long dog whip to show how
well he could use it.

And so one day Pomiuk and his mother said goodbye to his father, and
with several other Eskimos sailed away to the United States, destined
to take their place as exhibits at the great World's Fair in Chicago.

The suffering of the Eskimos in the strange land to which they were
taken was terrible. In Labrador they lived in the open, breathing
God's fresh air. In Chicago they were housed in close and often poorly
ventilated quarters. The heat was unbearable, and through all the long
hours of day and night when they were on exhibition they were
compelled to wear their heavy winter skin or fur clothing. They were
unaccustomed to the food. Some of them died, and the white men buried
them with little more thought or ceremony than was given those of
their dogs that died.

Pomiuk