FITTING FOR ARCTIC WEATHER 6r 



ing as the pure Indian designs of the more southerly 

 tribes. 



The porcupine-quill work is truly Indian, and, at its 

 best, exceedingly striking, both in design and coloring, 

 though only the most skilful can do it acceptably, for each 

 tiny quill, after dyeing, is woven in separately, and the 

 weaver's ingenuity or lack of it is revealed in the design. 

 The best specimens of this work are seen in the women's 

 belts, though it is put on moccasins, shirts, skirts, gun- 

 coats, as well as on the birch-bark baskets called rogans, 

 and used for every purpose. " Duffel " is a thick blanket 

 stuff, which, together with "strouds," a similar though 

 more closely spun material, the Hudson's Bay Company 

 introduced and christened. Duffel is used for socks and 

 strouds for leggings, and both are manufactured expressly 

 for the trade in this country. Leggings are used as much 

 to keep the trousers from becoming ice coated during 

 the day's snow-shoeing as for warmth. At night they 

 are removed, and thus your blankets are kept compara- 

 tively free of snow. The Indian gets his duffel by the 

 yard, and when he has cut it into strips about six inches 

 wide by eighteen inches long his socks are completed. 

 Their adjustment is equally simple, for he has only to be- 

 gin at the toes and wind the piece throughout its length 

 about the foot. The half-breed takes his duffel home, 

 where it is shaped and sewed into crude socks, and if his 

 wife thinks well of him, and is clever, she will vary them 

 in size (as two or three pairs are worn at a time inside the 

 moccasin), and fancy-stitch them in colored yarn. I tried 

 both styles of sock, and prefer the Indian's simpler kind ; 

 it is more quickly thawed out and dried at night ; if one 

 end wears or burns, it may be rearranged so a good part 

 covers the toes and heel the most important to keep 

 from freezing. Besides, you can fit it more snugly, which 



