IV 



IN SEARCH OF CROCKER LAND 



THERE were no eight-hour laws at Borup Lodge for 

 the month of January, 1914; we were a busy 

 munition-factory, working long overtime in preparation 

 for the struggle to come. Sledges, stanch and strong, 

 constructed of the best of oak, and lashed with the best 

 of rawhide, issued one by one from the doors of the big 

 workroom. As children are delighted with toys, so 

 were the Eskimos as they gathered around these new 

 productions, admiring the apparent strength, the grace- 

 ful bows, and the raking upstanders. The hum of the 

 blue-flame field-stove was almost incessant as the boys 

 continually experimented and perfected the equipment 

 upon which their comfort and health were to depend. 



During the extremely low temperatures of February 

 boiling-hot tea is a life-saver. Two other things only 

 do we now consider necessary — biscuit and pemmican. 

 And upon these three articles of food a man can do 

 the hardest kind of physical work and remain per- 

 fectly well. Each of our two meals a day consisted of 

 half a pound of biscuit and half a pound of pemmican. 

 Pemmican is a Cree word, a term applied to a highly 

 concentrated and nutritious food, consisting principally 

 of two ingredients, dried meat and suet; but white men 



