LEARNING TO LIVE AS AN ESKIMO 75 



Sten himself had another cabin from the previous winter, 

 for he had that year been shipwrecked near King Point 

 in a schooner, the Bonanza. The wreck had been partly- 

 salvaged, and there was a good deal of valuable prop- 

 erty ashore. The Penelope was now to fetch this 

 property to Shingle Point where Sten would spend the 

 winter with us. 



This would not take more than three or four days 

 and a sufficient number agreed to help. Sten asked me 

 to join in the enterprise and we sailed to King Point, 

 tore down his house but not Amundsen's, and loaded the 

 ship with whatever seemed valuable — lumber, carpenter 

 tools, ropes and the like. The whole was landed at 

 Shingle Point inside the week and with the help of sev- 

 eral Eskimos and myself Sten soon had a comfortable 

 house built. In this he invited me to spend the winter 

 with him, but I declined again for the same reason as I 

 had declined Harrison's previous invitation. Learning 

 all about the Eskimos was my object in coming North, 

 so I decided I would live with them and occasionally 

 visit Sten, instead of living with Sten and occasionally 

 visiting the Eskimos. 



From the time Harrison left me at Shingle Point till 

 the freeze-up several weeks later, we had visitors nearly 

 every day. Some of them stayed with us a few days; 

 others would arrive in the morning and leave towards 

 evening, or arrive in the evening and leave in the morn- 

 ing. This brought to my notice the remarkable ability 

 of Eskimo children to stay awake for long periods. 



In the summer time with perpetual daylight, the sleep- 

 ing habits of every one in the North are as irregular as 

 can be. At Macpherson, and in the interior generally, 

 it is common to go to sleep in the morning and get up 



