Playtime

We’d go sliding some afternoons, some Saturdays, have a good time sliding. We used to slide a lot on Nain Point there where the planes land. You got to climb a lot to go up, but coming down be good fun. Some slide on sealskins, and some slide

Reflections from Them Days on old Kamutiks. We used to make sleighs out of some of the bigger barrels. They’re in pieces, see, and then they’d nail three together and put water on it in the nighttime and it would freeze. You go down the hill fast, I tell you. Good for sliding on. Coming towards spring it was real good for sliding. The snow was stiffer for walking up and down. Sliding on the sealskins made them pretty. When you’re sliding it makes the fur right nice. Turn them around and you stop short, eh. That’s your brakes, the fur. Auntie Katie used to get a lot of sealskin from the communities, and she’d have us making them softer. We used to work all the evenings sometimes, softening them up after we’d been sliding on them. Put strings through the holes where they’d put them in the frame and then we’d stamp on them. They cuts a hole around the sealskin when they’re going to put them in the frame, but then when you’re going to soften them they put a bigger string around and draw it tight and then stamp on them, keep treading on them till they get soft. Exercise, I tell you. I think my bones were wore out long ago.