Lieut. Schwatka tells the Independent that:

"Those Eskimo brought in contact with white men not only showed more appreciation for flowers, but the greater floral display in their land gave them better facilities for indulging in it. This interest is found among the little children in probably the same proportion that exists among them in civilized communities. Of course, nowhere in Eskimo land does there appear anything like an appreciation of flowers, or any other beauties of nature, to the extent we find at home, and the idea of cultivating them for their pretty displays would be to them absurd in the extreme. The most it ever amounts to would never exceed that displayed by our lower classes when among the wild flowers, and even then not among those from the cities who appreciate these beauties much more than equally intelligent people constantly thrown among them. I have seen them pick flowers and apparently appreciate them, now and then even gathering little bunches, and when one reflects that these flowers of the frigid zones seldom have the slightest perfume to add to their plain beauty, one is not at a loss to understand why so little interest is shown in them, although they are almost the only display that nature gives to cheer this lone land.

Much of their interest, as would be expected, is of a practical nature; for when the first blossoms appeared on those few plants that later on were to give them a stinted supply of berries (there are three varieties of these in the country adjacent to North Hudson's Bay with which I became acquainted) we heard more of them than all others put together; but this should not be held too strongly against them, for we have the same in the spring nearly as much among our own people.