A SNOW HOUSE 



The Eskimo drivers snored peacefully on the 

 snow floor ! 



One plucky little Yorkshireman had an even 

 worse experience. He had snow knives, but his 

 drivers could not find snow hard enough for building. 

 They dug trenches in the snow, and slept in the 

 open! Providentially there was no wind, but my 

 thermometer outside the hospital at Okak, only 

 thirty miles north, registered sixty degrees of frost ; 

 so that one man at least can boast of sleeping in the 

 open air at somewhere near that temperature, and 

 taking no harm. As a rule this sort of experience 

 is beyond the endurance of a European constitu- 

 tion. 



Johannes was very distressed about it. " Kap- 

 pianarmek" (how awful), he said; "my namesake 

 sleeps in the open air ! I will go with him when he 

 travels back to Hopedale, and then he will be sure oi 

 a snow house ! " 



On those journeys of mine I got quite used to 

 seeing Johannes work himself up to snow house pitch 

 When the afternoon light began to grow dull, he 

 pulled out one of the big snow knives that he kepi 

 under the lashings of the sledge. A fearsome-looking 

 knife it was, with a bone handle and a blade a yarc 

 long. Brandishing this, he trotted from side to side 

 prodding here and jabbing there. He was " finding 



snow." 



Soon Julius stopped the sledge, and they held a 

 consultation. 



Then the building began. It was generally on j 

 gently sloping hillside, for there the snow hardens thj 

 best ; and Julius told me that a number of place* 



are famous among the Eskimos for good hard building 



162 



