Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 2, 2025
The snow fell thickly all day, the wind began to rise again, and a little after four o'clock the real force of the gale struck us in one continued, terrific sweep, and the snow blew so thick that we nearly smothered. The temperature was thirty degrees below zero. We could not see the length of the komatik.
They were dashing directly toward it at tremendous speed, and Charley was sure that they could not avoid a plunge into its cold depths. "Roll off!" Toby shouted. Charley rolled clear of the speeding komatik, pitching over and over, and finally sliding to a stop, dazed and bewildered, but in time to see the komatik, bottom up, at the very brink of the chasm. Toby was sprawling just above it.
I were alone wi' th' two young ones." "Tell me about it," I suggested. "'Twere this way sir," said Tom, spreading the pelt over a big chest where we could admire it. "I were away 'tendin' fox traps, and I has th' komatik and all th' dogs, savin' one, which I leaves behind. Th' woman were bidin' home alone wi' th' two young ones. 'Twere a wonderful big un too.
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. It was still above water, with food, hot tea in a thermos bottle, dry clothing, matches, wood, and everything on it for making a fire to attract attention.
Occasionally there were hills to climb, and some of these were so steep that it was necessary for Bob and the Eskimos to haul upon the traces with the dogs, and now and then they had to lift the komatik over rocky places, and on one river that they crossed they were forced to cut in several places a passage around ice hills, where the tide had piled the ice blocks thirty or forty feet high.
This they made as comfortable as possible, and settled in it as the last shelter they should ever have in the world, as they all firmly believed it would prove. They were now driven to straits by thirst, but there was not a drop of water, save the salt sea water, to be had. "We'll have to burn the komatik," said Aluktook.
Two drags were thrown over the komatik runners to hold us back, but in spite of them we went like a shot out of a gun, he on one side, I on the other, sticking our heels into the hard snow as we extended our legs ahead, trying our best to hold back and stop our wild progress.
Doctor Joe and Eli ran in turns by the side of the komatik, while the dogs trotted briskly. "What's that, now?" asked Eli, pointing to a black object far out on the white field of ice, as they approached The Jug. "I can't make out," said Doctor Joe after a long scrutiny. "We'll see," and Eli turned the dogs toward the object. "It looks like a flatsled," said Doctor Joe as they approached.
In this northern part even that little is rendered almost impenetrable in the summer-time by the thick under-brush, known as "tuckamore," and the formidable swarms of mosquitoes and black flies. All the inhabitants live on the coast, and the interior is only travelled over in the winter with komatik and dogs. No, I am not living in the midst of Indians or Eskimos.
Pretty soon he managed to attain a sitting posture, and with his legs spread before him, but still holding desperately on, he skimmed along after the komatik. The next and last evolution was a "belly-gutter" position. This became too strenuous for him, however, and the line was jerked out of his hands.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking