204 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 



an inch square, soaked in oil and put on the bottom of the stove. 

 On top of it we make a little heap of the bones and on top of the 

 heap we lay several strips of blubber, resembling so many strips 

 of fat bacon. A match is touched to the rag and it burns like the 

 wick of a candle, with the flame playing up between the bones and 

 striking the blubber, which promptly begins to try out so that the 

 oil drips down between the bones, forming a film on their outside. 

 Upon sufficient heating this film flares up, and thereafter your 

 fire burns with a furious heat so long as a strip of blubber is placed 

 upon it. You now stand your cooking pot, filled with meat and 

 water, upon the cross wires within the stove six or eight inches 

 above the bottom. The flame first strikes the bottom of the pot 

 and then spreads and comes up all around it, since the diameter of 

 the stove is an inch or two larger than that of the pot. Application 

 of heat to the bottom and sides of the pot at one time brings it 

 to a boil as quickly as would the largest wood fire in a forest. 



The only disadvantage of this method of cooking is that the 

 smoke of burning seal oil is thick and black and exceedingly sticky. 

 It is, in fact, the best quality of lampblack, and clings to every- 

 thing. We are always careful not to have the smoke strike the 

 tent, but now and then a dog, where it is tied, happens to be in 

 the path of the smoke, with the result that any white spots there 

 may be on his coat soon become as dark as the rest of him. One 

 of our almost white dogs was nearly as dark as the blackest by the 

 time we got ashore in Banks Island. 



Although I had commonly done the cooking in the tent, whether 

 with primus stove or seal oil lamp, either Storkerson or Ole was the 

 cook after the blubber stove had been devised. Storkerson when 

 once his fire was started used to stand aside and keep out of the 

 smoke, but Ole was more solicitous and hovered about, so there is 

 no exaggeration in saying that, although he is naturally a light 

 Norwegian type of blond, he was in color within two weeks 

 something between a mulatto and a full-blooded negro. 



From this point on we all enjoyed our journey as we had not 

 done before. I never could see anything very attractive and 

 certainly nothing particularly romantic in the portable-boarding- 

 house method of arctic travel. If you have no hope of any food 

 beyond that in your sled, your conscience worries you every time 

 you eat a square meal. In fact, if you are of the historic, heroic 

 type you never allow yourself a square meal, and make stern mem- 

 oranda in your diary about the member of your party who takes a 

 nibble between hours or who eats more than his share. Some ex- 



