. . . Wild and wide are my borders, 

 stern as death is my sway, 



And I wait for the men who will 

 win me and I will not be won in a day. 



ROBERT W. SERVICE * 



VII * Arctic adventures the search continued 



Even in summer, when, except for the mosquitoes, you 

 can be comfortable in the sunshine out-of-doors twenty-four hours 

 of the day, there aren't too many diversions around an Arctic out- 

 post like Aklavik. We were waiting for the arrival of the gasoline 

 barge so that we could begin our survey flights over the surround- 

 ing country. We discovered most of the diversions in the first two 

 or three days we were there and then repeated them, mixing them 

 up as to sequence just to make it more interesting. We could join 

 the Eskimo and Loucheux families that crowded nightly into the 

 movie theater, but of course there were only the five pictures, and 

 after we'd seen each of them two or three times their entertain- 

 ment value wasn't worth the one-dollar admission price. Besides, 

 unless you came an hour ahead of time you had to sit on the 

 floor, right up against the screen. Once a week there was home- 

 made ice cream at the hotel. There was the North Star Inn, where 

 they sold root beer that they made themselves, and where there 

 * The Law of the Yukon. 



103 



