CHAPTER IV. 



WINTER QUARTERS. 



New Year Life in Ned's Cabin Unexpected delay Start for the Ship 

 Lost in a Gale Return to Ned's Cabin Arrive at the Ship Buying 

 Dogs Ship leaking Small Sledge Trips in the vicinity Gales 

 Preparations for the Sledge Trip Sickness amongst the Natives 

 Getting ready to start on the Sledge Trip across Beaufort Sea. 



THE New Year commenced, and to a superstitious man the 

 day would have been a good omen for the year to come. It 

 was very calm ; the mountains to the south looked very close 

 in the thin, clear atmosphere. Far away to the west we could 

 see them, at a distance of a hundred miles or more ; to the east 

 they were visible almost as far, lifted by the refraction, looking 

 fantastic and weird. The day was perfect, and Ned and I 

 enjoyed our daily round to the traps. We can already see 

 that the days are getting longer, and each day the red glow of 

 the sky to the south, visible at noon through a mountain pass, 

 comes stronger and stronger, while the golden tinge framing 

 the edges of the clouds tells us that it will not be very long 

 before the sun has come back so far that we can see it through 

 the pass. Then we shall have fine, long days again, we shall 

 once more be able to travel, and the monotony of the winter 

 will be a thing of the past. 



It is strange that the Eskimos should not have become sun 

 or fire worshippers, as these two things together almost con- 

 stitute life in the Arctic. The sun, even when absent from the 

 sky, is never absent from their talk, and whenever we ask a 

 man to go somewhere or other he will invariably say, "Yes, 

 when the sun comes back ! " The sun alone brings life ; it 

 warms the air and melts the snow; flowers spring up, and 

 ducks and geese flock into the country. Then there is life and 

 a time of plenty, where before there was half-starvation. Truly, 

 the sum of an Eskimo's existence is " the sun, the sun." When 

 the sun is here, the country is fine, the stomach is full, there 



