Field Notes on Mammals of the Chesterfield Inlet, District of Keewatin

Résumé

These notes are based on observations, and some collecting, during a stay at the village of Chesterfield Inlet (C) from 27 May to 21 July 1967; they include some information obtained from local white and native residents. Small mammal traps were set in the warehouse of the Hudson's Bay Company (hereafter referred to as the "Bay") at Chesterfield, at several points on the outskirts of the village, and on Promise Island. A few specimens were also secured during 4 days, 21 to 25 July, spent at Rankin Inlet (R), 4 days, 25 to 29 July, spent at Baker Lake (B). In the annotated list below trinomials are used only for those species of which specimens were collected; in the case of arctic foxes the subspecies could be determined from several skulls that were found. The subspecific determinations were made by P.M.Youngman, curator of mammals at the National Museum of Canada, where the specimens were deposited. The localities referred to are shown on the sketch map, .... The vernacular names of the species and the order of the list follows Burt and Grossenheider whose guide was used in the field. The Eskimo names given are those in use about Chesterfield Inlet. My orthography is essentially that of Thibert's dictionary, i.e., the words are sounded as if they were Latin (or for that matter German) with the following exceptions: the guttural sound which often follows ak, for which Thibert finds no true equivalent in French, is rendered ch, pronounced as in the Scots' word loch (or German dach); the sound which he renders as s is written sh to be pronounced as in English (equivalent to German sch); s is to be pronounced as in any of the West European languages. This simple system is the same as I have previously used for Amerind and Eskimo bird names. As far as I can judge it is in agreement with Greenlandic orthography. My journey to Keewatin was supported by grants from the National Research Council of Canada and the Arctic Institute of North America.