United States or Cook Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
About two miles from Good Point, we passed the Doctor's igloo. About a mile beyond this, we passed the "Crystal Palace" that had been occupied by the Captain. Six miles farther north, we passed a second igloo, which had been built by the Doctor's party. How did we know who had built and occupied these igloos?
Hockey and football on the floe were our chief recreations, and all hands joined in many a strenuous game. Worsley took a party to the floe on the 26th and started building a line of igloos and "dogloos" round the ship. These little buildings were constructed, Esquimaux fashion, of big blocks of ice, with thin sheets for the roofs.
Two holes were left in the igloos to serve as doors; and, after they were finished, the Esquimau cut a square hole in the top of each, not far from the key-stones, and above the entrances. Into these he fitted slabs of clear ice, which formed windows as beautiful and useful as if they had been made of glass. There were two doorways in the large igloo, one of which faced the doorway of the smaller.
H. arrived with the teacher to hold an evening service in the kitchen, the latter taking Ricka and Mary with her to call upon some native families, two of whose members were sick. When they returned Ricka was full of laughter at the way they had entered the native igloos, especially Mary, who is a large woman and could barely squeeze in through the small opening called by courtesy a door.
January twenty-fifth: This has been a very cold, windy day, but three of the men came in from prospecting on the creeks, and have little to report. To think of living in tents, or even native igloos, in such weather for any length of time whatever, is enough to freeze one's marrow, and I think the men deserve to "strike it rich" to repay them for so much discomfort and suffering. Mr.
Back of the igloos was a hill a couple of hundred feet high, and many times each day the men of the camp would climb it and look long and earnestly to the north, where the heaving billows of Hudson Straits and the sky line met, broken only here and there by huge icebergs that towered like great crystal mountains above the water.
January 3d the thermometer reached the lowest point that we saw during our sojourn in this climate in the morning -70 degrees, at noon -69 degrees, and at five o'clock in the afternoon the extraordinary mark of -71 degrees. Equeesik moved his igloo about ten miles ahead this day, but the other two igloos were compelled to wait for their hunters to come in.
When we halted on April 6, 1909, and started to build the igloos, the dogs and sledges having been secured, I noticed Commander Peary at work unloading his sledge and unpacking several bundles of equipment. I recognized his old silk flag, and realized that this was to be a camp of importance.
The Eskimos heat their snow igloos, and in treeless regions their igloosoaks also, with lamps of hollowed stone. These lamps are made in the form of a half moon. Seal oil is used as fuel, and a rag, if there is any to be had, or moss, resting upon the straight side of the lamp, does service as the wick. Of course the snow igloos must never be permitted to get so warm that the snow will melt.
Koko sat down; the boat glided along through the water, nearer and nearer, until at last they came round the Big Rock, and there, just as if they had not been away at all, lay the whole village of five igloos, looking as if it had gone to sleep in the sunshine.
Word Of The Day