54 REPORT ON THE INTRODUCTION OF 



The sud set on the cKy on which the station was established at 11 p. 

 m., and rose the following morning at 1.45. 



On the 3d day of July, feeling some apprehension about the safety 

 of the vessel on which our lumber was shipped, we started a number of 

 natives digging an excavation in the side of the hill for the purpose of 

 building a dugout, to be occupied as a house, in the event of nothing 

 better being available. 



For several days work was done with a single spade, a broken long- 

 handled miner's shovel belonging to a native, an axe, a clinch bar, at 

 one time belonging to some steam vessel, and a piece of flat iron, the last 

 two being used in the place of crowbars. Pieces of driftwood were cut 

 and their ends sharpened, and with these tools the earth was dug out 

 idid pried off in chunks and lifted out of the excavation with a patience 

 that only an Eskimo can exercise. 



In less than 2 feet from the surface frost and ice were encountered, 

 but, when exposed a few hours to the air, the ground thawed suf- 

 ficiently for us to continue our work. 



In a few days the Bear returned from the Siberian side with some 

 reindeer, and left other tools, with which in a day or two the excava- 

 tion was so far completed as to be ready for the logs. 



The only timber growing in this country are scattering willow and 

 alder bushes, but nature has provided these people with fuel by bring- 

 ing to the beach almost to their very feet, logs of good size and in 

 abundance. It finds its way here by the motion of wind and tide from 

 the mouth of the Yukon River. From this driftwood we obtained logs 

 sufficient to construct a dugout 18 by 24 and when completed we occu- 

 pied it until the frame building was ready, and we moved into it about 

 the last of August. 



The idea of building a dugout proved to be a most fortunate one, for 

 it became our habitation on the 5th day of October, and we remained 

 in it throughout the long mouths of winter, and not until the snow and 

 ice disappeared in the spring did we go back into the frame building. 



By some means little if any of the lumber received at the station was 

 of proper dimensions for the plan of the building selected for the station 

 and although an apartment 20 feet square was set aside for living quar- 

 ters there was not enough finishing lumber or ceiling to make it habi- 

 table. Before it froze out in the fall sods were laid up on the three 

 sides exposed to the weather, and on the other side of the living room 

 jnside of the building was also piled sod. 



The walls were about 5 feet at the base, gradually sloping so as to 

 leave the top layers about 2 feet thick, but they were water-soaked, 

 and when frozen left cracks and seams through which the snow and 

 frost penetrated. The roof consisted of but one layer of matched floor- 

 ing, covered with sail cauvass and painted, and although water-tight, 

 the frost penetrated through it like water through a seive. Toward 

 spring, or when the weather moderated sufficiently to warm the living 



