124 CONQUERING THE ARCTIC ICE 



for instance, when some hours later I came into the tent the 

 woman was stirring something in a pot, and as I saw that they 

 looked very serious all the while, I went nearer, and on investi- 

 gating I saw that they were trying to boil peanuts and were 

 highly surprised to see that they would not get soft though they 

 had been boiling them for hours. 



Their tent, in which I spent most of my day, was the 

 ordinary Eskimo tent made of willow-sticks, bent in such a 

 manner as to form one side of a half-circle. For a large tent 

 they make use of sixteen to twenty poles, stuck on end in the 

 ground and forming an oval. The projecting ends are tied 

 together, and a frame made in this way and covered with 

 canvas makes a very solid tent, for the wind cannot get hold 

 of its half-round surface. As these people used the tent for a 

 permanent abode, they had made a cover of winter cariboo 

 skins, and on top of that again they had stretched a piece of 

 drilling. A loose-hanging piece of skin makes the door. These 

 tents are very warm, and many Eskimos live in them in summer 

 as well as winter. The air in the tent is usually suffocating, 

 as the door is never left open, but only opened as little as 

 possible when a person crawls out or in. 



Besides the four people living in this tent, there were many 

 old and bad-smelling cariboo skins which, judging by their 

 smell and their looks, had been used for many years as bedding. 

 In a bucket they had some rancid seal oil, and the remains of 

 meals were kept day after day in a corner of the tent, to be 

 used as dog-feed when everything else gave out. All sorts of 

 scraps were lying on the floor in goodly profusion, and an old 

 kerosene tank, used as a stove and very leaky, completed the 

 furniture. 



These people take life very easily. Right outside their tent 

 the river is roaring over the shallows, and only rarely is there 

 any ice at all. Fish are swimming about in the pool, and they 

 usually manage to catch enough to exist, but as they only fish 

 when they get hungry, there is a chance that some day, when 

 the weather is bad and stormy, they will have to go without. 



The way of preparing the fish is also easy ; they merely 

 leave it outside the tent until it is frozen solid and they them- 

 selves feel ready to eat it. A deft cut with a knife loosens the 

 skin at the back of the head, and after another cut along the back 



