The World About Us

People of the Seal: Eskimo Winter (6x6)

Air date: Feb 13, 1972

Pelly Bay, in the Canadian Arctic: the temperature -20°C. But this doesn'worry the fur-clad hunter crouching beside the seal's breathing hole who has waited there for 15 hours, right through the polar night, and will remain there till either a seal surfaces - or he freezes slowly to death. This was the old way with the Netsilik Eskimos-the People of the Seal. Now, they, and their harsh, simple life have been swept away into settlements. But not before a Canadian camera team had shot nearly 100 hours of film, the best of which makes up these programmes reflecting the actions and the outlook of a vanished race.