Dog Sledging in the North 



irritation of the lungs, due to breathing pine 

 smoke a good many hours each day. In fact, 

 it was almost unbearable. An Indian tepee 

 of this kind, properly made by a squaw, is be- 

 yond doubt the most comfortable of all hunt- 

 ing tents in any respectable climate ; but in a 

 climate of 40 degrees below zero it is an 

 abomination. We used frequently to crawl 

 into our sheep-skin sleeping bags, wrap several 

 blankets around the bags and put the fire out, 

 merely to get relief from the annoyance of the 

 smoke. In the morning the steam which arose 

 from our bodies, and from the meal which we 

 might be cooking, got mixed up with the 

 smoke, so that it was impossible to distinguish 

 each other when four feet apart. In fact, we 

 were sometimes inclined to think that the dogs 

 on the outside were better off than ourselves, 

 though the appearance they presented in the 

 morning was not such as to cause us to wish 

 to change places with them. They were each 

 tied by a short chain to the pine trees about 

 the camp, and after a night of low temperature 

 there were to be seen in the morning only 

 twelve white mounds of snow; not that any 

 snow had fallen during the night, or that the 

 dogs had crawled underneath that already on 



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