CHAPTER XLIV 



MIDWINTER TRAVELS AND PLANS [1915-16] 



BY No^-ember 30th the moon was at the awaited stage but that 

 day there was a blizzard. We started at 10:45 the next 

 morning, which is early as the sunless days go in these lati- 

 tudes around Christmas. When the weather is clear this season 

 affords between three and four hours around noon of twilight clear 

 enough for the reading of ordinary print. There was young ice on 

 the straits, so we took with us, in addition to two sleds intended 

 to take us to Kellett, a third sled for hauling a tent which we ex- 

 pected to pitch in the middle of the straits for the first night's 

 sleep. Palaiyak went along to take the tent home in the morning, 

 while we counted on making Banks Island and finding a snowdrift 

 for a snowhouse for the following night. I imagine that this cross- 

 ing of Banks Island was a great adventure to Noice and Martin 

 who were new at it, but it resembled the same crossing made by 

 Natkusiak and me in 1914 closely enough so that the description 

 need not be given in detail. 



Our experience the first night on Banks Island was a little spe- 

 cial, however. We found a village of three or four deserted snow- 

 houses which had been built by the Kullak party on their way from 

 Cape Kellett to Minto Inlet. All these houses had caved in and 

 were uninhabitable. Evidently the snow had been so soft that the 

 roofs had begun to sag at once through the shrinking of the blocks. 

 None of the houses had fallen with a crash, as indeed snowhouses 

 never do that are built of soft snow, and it is probable that the 

 builders were able to occupy each over-night. But by morning the 

 roofs must have been pretty low and in the week or two that had 

 since elapsed the roofs had sagged until the centers of the domes 

 touched the floor. 



Only one house was in passable condition and even this had a 

 bell-shaped depression in the roof drooping to within about two 

 feet of the floor. Thinking the men might be tired I asked them 

 which they preferred, to crawl into this old house or build a new 

 one. I had to tell them that ours might sag in the same way but 



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