214 FOUR YEARS IN THE WHITE NORTH [Jan. 



Borup Lodge. After pouring out the precious beverage 

 into six cups, she placed them carefully on the pantry 

 shelf to await the arrival of her invited guests, all of 

 whom felt highly honored and very much elated in 

 anticipation of the promised treat. Unsuspecting, she 

 left the room. Upon her return some minutes later 

 things did not look right nor smell right. 



Seated in the middle of the floor was Noo-ka-ping-wa, 

 her youthful husband, wearing a foolish grin, spasmodi- 

 cally broken by hearty guffaws and accompanied by a 

 swaying of the body and a slapping of the palm of his 

 hand against his thigh in self-congratulation at his 

 trickery. The whisky was gone! Noo-ka-ping-wa had 

 celebrated the anniversary by drinking enough for six! 

 Result — a fine drunk and then a drag-out an hour later. 

 The invited and expectant w^omen, failing utterly to 

 appreciate the incident, walked solemnly back to their 

 tea and dog-biscuit. 



Contrary to the general understanding of Arctic work, 

 every hour was fully occupied, even through the dark 

 days of winter. There were meteorological observations 

 to be recorded, chronometers to wind, barographs and 

 thermographs to attend to, twelve dogs to care for and 

 feed, food to be dug out of the snow, meat to be secured 

 from caches down the coast, frozen eggs to be brought 

 from Littleton Island, and constant preparations going 

 on for the long, forthcoming spring trip which I was 

 planning to make to King Christian Island. 



If it were not for such busy days, one would certainly 

 become demented with the almost constant howling of 

 the violent winds peculiar to Foulke Fiord. We often 

 drove from the beauty and quietness of a perfect Arctic 

 night ten miles below Etah into a maelstrom of whirl- 



