This Eskimo explained that the white men had come from America to invite some of the Labrador Eskimos to go to America to see their country.  People from all the nations of the world, he said, were to gather there to meet each other and to get acquainted.  They were to bring strange and wonderful things with them, that the people of each nation might see how the people of other nations made and used their things, and how they lived.  They wished the Labrador Eskimos to come and show how they dressed their skins and made their skin clothing and skin boats, and to bring with them dogs and sledges, and harpoons and other implements of the hunt.

The white men promised it would be a most wonderful experience for those that went.  They agreed to take them and all their things on the ship and after the big affair in America was over bring them back to their homes, and give them enough to make them all rich for the rest of their lives.

The Eskimos were naturally quite excited with the glowing descriptions, the opportunity to travel far into new lands, and the prospect of wealth and happiness offered them when they again returned to their Labrador homes.  Pomiuk and his mother were eager for the journey, but his father did not care to leave the land and the life he knew.  He decided that he had best remain in Labrador and hunt; but he agreed that Pomiuk’s mother might go to make skin boots and clothing, and Pomiuk might go with her and take the long dog whip to show how well he could use it.

And so one day Pomiuk and his mother said goodbye to his father, and with several other Eskimos sailed away to the United States, destined to take their place as exhibits at the great World’s Fair in Chicago.

The suffering of the Eskimos in the strange land to which they were taken was terrible.  In Labrador they lived in the open, breathing God’s fresh air.  In Chicago they were housed in close and often poorly ventilated quarters.  The heat was unbearable, and through all the long hours of day and night when they were on exhibition they were compelled to wear their heavy winter skin or fur clothing.  They were unaccustomed to the food.  Some of them died, and the white men buried them with little more thought or ceremony than was given those of their dogs that died.

Pomiuk, in spite of his suffering, kept his spirits.  He loved to wield his long dog whip.  It was his pride.  Visitors at the fair pitched nickles and dimes into the enclosure where the Eskimos and their exhibits were kept.  Pomiuk with the tip of his thirty-five foot lash would clip the coins, and laugh with delight, for every coin he clipped was to be his.  He was the life of the Eskimo exhibit.  Visitors could always distinguish his ringing laugh.  He was always smiling.

The white men who had induced the Eskimos to leave their homes failed to keep their promise when the fair closed.  The poor Eskimos were abandoned in a practically penniless condition and no means was provided to return them to their homes.  To add to the distress of Pomiuk’s mother, Pomiuk fell and injured his hip.  Proper surgical treatment was not supplied, the injury, because of this neglect, did not heal, and Pomiuk could no longer run about or walk or even stand upon his feet.