Therefore, without giving the matter a second thought, I flung myself on the komatik and the dogs started for the rocky promontory some four miles distant.
Dog food must be distributed along the komatik trail in summer--though the people will make great sacrifices to feed "the Doctor's team.
A bear had crossed close ahead, and before he could unlash his rifle the komatik had dashed right onto the animal, who, instead of running, stood up and showed fight.
Not so long before a man named Casey, bringing his komatik down the steep hill at Conche, missed his footing and fell headlong by a bush into the snow.
The girl managed the boat and fished in summer, drove the dogs and komatik and did the shooting for which they could afford powder in winter.
Since I have enjoyed the luxury of a driver, or a "carter" as we call them, my cunning in wriggling a komatik at full speed down steep mountain-sides through trees has somewhat waned.
Weight on your komatik is a vital question, and not knowing for what you may be called upon, makes the outfitting an art.
As fortune would have it, our own komatik fell through the ice in taking a short cut across a bay, and we arrived late, having had to borrow some dry clothing from a fisherman on the way.
Some yards away I could still see my komatik with my thermos bottle and warm clothing on it, as well as matches and wood.
I dragged off my oilskins and threw myself on my hands and knees beside the komatik so as to give a larger base to hold, shouting at the same time to my team to make a dash for the shore.
The storm had abated by this time, and a fresh komatiktrack was visible, which we proceeded to follow.
The condition of my feet had not permitted me to leave the komatik during our long journey, and I suffered severely from the cold.
The noise of our approaching komatik caused the wolf to slink off, and then the man hurried to the tilt, reappeared with a rifle and shot the beast as it still prowled among the ice hills.
A part of the time Mackenzie and Fred ran beside the komatik on their snowshoes to get warm, but my knees were still so weak that I had to stick to the komatik all the way.
Mackenzie immediately despatched Mark with the dogs and komatik to carry the coffin to Kenemish, and on April 4th it was returned with the necessary alterations.
Sometimes the ice hills are piled so high here by the tide that it takes a day or even two to cut a komatik path through them and cross the river, but fortunately we had very little cutting to do.
Its bed forms the chief part of the komatikroute to Nachvak, and therefore our route.
Then, for fear that Edmunds might not understand the urgency of his immediate returns they kept firing at intervals all night, stopping only to pack the komatik box with the clothing and food that Edmunds was to bring to us.
I was afraid he might have been injured on a rock, but my anxiety was soon relieved when I saw him running along the shore to overtake the komatik where it had been stopped to wait for him below.
In the afternoon Peter caught his foot in a crevice, and the komatik jammed him with such force that he narrowly escaped a broken leg and was crippled for the rest of the journey.
The Ungava Eskimo never upon any account travels with komatik and dogs without a snow knife.
Of course, coming among the Eskimos as we did in winter, we did not see them using their kayaks or their umiaks,* but our experience with dogs and komatik was pretty complete.
From his komatik box he produced a bottle of port wine and made us each take a small dose of it which he poured into a tin cup.
Christmas eve came finally, and with itkomatik loads of Eskimos, who roused the place from its repose into comparative wakefulness.
Sometimes we would walk ahead of the komatik and lie down until it overtook us, frequently falling asleep in the brief interim.
It is the custom on the coast for the people to accompany a komatik starting on a journey for some distance from the station.
They knew their master had left them and had come back to the komatik to wait.
For it is not etiquette to ask a stranger's reasons for visiting a well-stocked house, in a country where the komatik trail is the only resource for the destitute.
He put on Sally his own cap, coat, and mits, tied the twine round his wrist, and then let him out to find the komatik again if he could; while if he fell exhausted Uncle Eben could at least follow the line and perhaps get him back again.
Ky lay mostly on the komatik now, and it took all Sally's strength and such little aid as Patsy could give to enable the dogs to haul up the Frenchman's Leap, usually nearly perpendicular, but now fortunately sloped off by the heavy drift.
Halting the dogs he turned the komatik over, driving the upturned nose of the runners deep into the snow; then he laid Patsy on the top, and, lashing him on, finally began groping back down the steep rise for the missing man.
He reached the sledge, cut the traces he could not disentangle, and, keeping Surefoot by him, he cleared the komatik of the woodpile.
At last the komatiktopped the brow and was once more coming along after them.
Every harness was carefully gone over, every trace tested; the runners and cross-bars of his komatik all came in for a critical overhauling.
To his horror on reaching the komatik he found the real cause of its running so much more easily.
The northern komatik trail crossed twenty miles seaward, where the calm, wide expanse made the ice much safer in the early winter than near the swift current at the river mouth.
Apparently he has been living at the bottom of a bay 'way out of the line of the komatik trail.
I tore off my oilskins, threw myself on my hands and knees by the side of the komatik to give a larger base to hold, and shouted to my team to go ahead for the shore.
Before we had gone twenty yards, the dogs got frightened, hesitated for a moment, and the komatik instantly sank into the slob.
It was tantalizing, as I stood with next to nothing on, the wind going through me and every stitch soaked in ice-water, to see my well-stocked komatik some fifty yards away.
As I was dressing I looked out of my window, and for the first time in my life saw a dog team and komatik passing.
All the inhabitants live on the coast, and the interior is only travelled over in the winter with komatik and dogs.
We flung ourselves down at full length on the komatik to give as broad a surface of resistance as possible, and what encouragement was given the dogs we did with our voices.
The dogs had all they could do to drag the komatik with the luggage on it.
Her elder brother had to drive her eighteen miles on a komatik to the hospital, and the poor child must have suffered greatly.
It was easy to get off to the centre, for the big pans at the edge would float a far greater weight than a komatik and dogs and three people.
When we reached home, and I left the komatik at the hospital door, I made out 'Senath dancing in an agitatedly aimless fashion on our platform.
He was going now to see a lad of fifteen whose thigh had been broken while steering a komatik down a steep hill.
Each dog has its individual trace, which is fastened to the end of a single line of walrus skin leading from the komatik and called the bridle.
The men's guns were lashed on the komatik, and both were, therefore, unarmed, and before they could reach the komatik and unlash the rifles the wolves had fled over the hill and out of range.
Immediately the dogs are away at a mad gallop, with the komatik swinging wildly from side to side.
A special team andkomatik would be required for the journey, but the lad's father had no dogs, and with a family of ten children to support, in addition to Ambrose, no money with which to hire one.
Pomiuk thought it would be a fine adventure, some night, when he was grown to be a man and a great hunter, to take the dogs and komatik and drive out over the ice to the place from which the sun rose, and be there in the morning to meet him.
In the spring, when the snow had begun to melt, the komatik was found and scattered about it were human bones.
The driver throws himself on his side on the komatik clinging to it with both hands.
There was nothing to eat for himself and nothing to feed the dogs, for the loaded komatik had long since disappeared beneath the surface of the sea.
The storm delayed Ambrose and his friends, but after the weather cleared their komatik appeared.
Then it is that Doctor Grenfell sets out with his dogs and komatik over the great silent snow waste to visit his far scattered patients.
The snow was deep and the traveling hard, and several men turned out to help the dogs haul the komatik to the summit.
His father kept nine of them, and many an exciting ride Pomiuk had behind them when his father took him on the komatik to hunt seals or to look at fox traps, or to visit the Trading Post.
The dogs made fast progress, taking a steady trotting gait, with Toby and Charley trotting beside the komatik and the two Indians ahead following the trail of Marks to be certain that it did not turn to some other quarter.
Toby threw the komatik upon its side, with its nose against an ice hummock as an anchorage, and observing this maneuver, the bear resumed all fours and began a retreat with a lumbering, but astonishingly rapid gait, toward the northward.
He turned about on the komatik and looked toward the cabin, his guilty conscience prompting him to fear that even now he might be followed.
Then a fishing net that needed repairs was made ready to lash upon the komatik with the load in the morning, the dogs were fed, and they settled for a cozy evening while they talked over their adventures, and Charley's new rifle.
From the cabins to the summit the slope was gradual, and with some help over the steeper places, the dogs hauled the komatik to the summit with little difficulty.
Twould be a long walk out to the barrens to tend un, but if we takes the dogs and komatik we'd have good travelin' for un everywhere exceptin' through the short neck of woods.
Tis rocky and bad travelin' in here, and if we takes the komatik we'll have to help the dogs pull un some places," said Toby.
The dog was sent sprawling, and Charley expected that the speeding komatik would strike and crush the helpless animal.
At the edge of the barrens the komatik was stopped, and the dogs were secured that they might not interfere with the hunting.
He had not run far when all at once he saw them swing down over the brow of the hill toward the komatik, and he turned about and ran to the komatik to intercept them with the whip, which he was still dragging.
Immediately it was begun, the komatik began to coast, and Toby threw a ring of braided walrus hide over the front end of one of the runners.
When you drops off, I jerks the front of the komatik and that makes she turn over and roll, and when I does un the dogs stops and holds fast.
The attack was launched with such indescribable suddenness that Doctor Joe and Jamie had scarcely time to drop from the komatik before it was begun.
Tinker, the leading dog, was fully thirty-five feet from the komatik when his trace was stretched to its full length.
Hardly one of them had escaped injury from the wolf fangs, and Dick, a faithful old fellow, was so badly mangled that Andy cut him loose from the harness to follow the komatik home at his leisure.
You'll be needin' dogs and komatik (sledge) to take you about.
Eli grinned sheepishly as he broke the komatik loose, and the dogs dashed away.
Leading from the komatik (sledge) in front was a single thong of sealskin with a loop on its end.
And since you're to take me about with dogs and komatik this winter when I go to visit sick people, there'll be no end of chances to show what good scouts you are.
We'll take you over snug and warm in our komatik box.
When Doctor Luke made off across the bay, leaving Teddy Brisk to follow, by means of Timothy Light's komatik and scrawny dogs, Schooner Bay had already gone rotten, in a spell of southerly weather.
There were twenty miles of bay ice ahead; the dogs were footsore and lean; the komatik was overflowing--it was out of the question.
Seventeen men had come for the physician, willing to haul the komatik themselves, if no dogs were to be had.
Meantime, a komatik had arrived in haste from a point on the northwest coast--a settlement one hundred and twenty miles distant.
Grenfell was wintering at St. Anthony, on the French shore, there came in great haste from Conch, a point sixty miles distant, a komatik with an urgent summons to the bedside of a man who lay dying of hemorrhage.
When the rawhide shrinks the komatik becomes firm.
Not long since, while visiting the establishment of a New York City outfitter, I saw an equipment which a sportsman ambitious for experience with dogs and komatik (sledge) had selected for a month's journey which he was about to undertake.
That is to say, each dog has an individual trace secured to the end of a single thong, leading out from the bow of the komatik and called the bridle.
The traveler will do well, therefore, to purchase if he does not hire his komatik at the point of departure, as in so doing he will secure one of correct design for the region to be traversed.
The types of snowshoes suggested in the chapter on snowshoe and toboggan travel are the types also best suited to dog and komatik work.
It is designed for the roughest possible use, and is, I believe, better adapted to this purpose than the Greenland komatik because more substantially built.
This is, in fact, the heaviest and most efficient komatik I have ever seen.
Long snowshoes would be very much in the way when one has to go to the traces and haul with the dogs or lift and assist the komatik over rough places; and this becomes the rule rather than the exception as one goes North.
For example, wide and comparatively short komatiks are employed in Quebec, while the Ungava komatik is but sixteen inches wide.
The average komatik is two feet wide and ten feet long but as stated, they vary in different localities, a uniform width being maintained to suit the local conditions of the region in which they are used.
In the middle of the afternoon they turned into a komatik track, and Bob's heart gave a bound of joy.
The jack plane was needed to keep thekomatik runners smooth.
The snow was packed hard and firm, so that neither the dogs nor the komatik broke through, and the animals, fresh and eager, started at a fast pace and maintained an even, steady trot throughout the day.
Finally, just at nightfall she heard her father shouting at the dogs outside and presently he came in carrying his komatik box, his beard weighted with ice and his clothing white with hoar frost.
The gale, in fact, was so fierce that they could scarce hold their feet against it, and had they released their hold of the komatik even for an instant, it is doubtful if they could have found it again.
Long before daylight the next morning the Eskimos were lashing the load on the komatik and at dawn the dogs were harnessed and everything ready.
The three grabbed the traces and helped the dogs jerk the komatik clear of the next sea, and all were at last safe.
They stopped the dogs when they realized that further effort was useless and sat down on the komatik in impotent dismay.
One afternoon they turned the komatik from the land to the far stretching ice of a wide bay directing their course towards a cove on the farther side, where the Eskimos said they expected to find igloos.
The load had already been lashed upon the komatik and the mud on the runners rubbed over with lukewarm water which had frozen into a thin glaze of ice that would slip easily over the snow.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "komatik" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
