Rasmussen on Arviligjuarmiut (1931)

Arviligjuaq (the big one with the whales) is a term applied to the whole of Pelly Bay and has its origin in some mountain formations that, from a distance, have an outline like whales on the surface of the water. The natives themselves say that these formations have given rise to the name, as no whales ever come to these waters owing to the ice conditions.

The Arviligjuarmiut, as the people call themselves, are connected with the Netsilingmiut tribal group by relationship and intermarrying, and yet they isolate themselves from them, inasmuch as they always prefer to have land between Lord Mayor's Bay and Committee Bay. That winter the group numbered no more than fifty-four men, women and children, whose names will be given when collectively describing the group later on. At this time of the year they were living on sealing, split up into three settlements – two on the ice in Pelly Bay itself and the third on the west coast of Simpson Peninsula at the so-called Sātoq, out towards Committee Bay.