LEARNING TO BUILD A SNOWHOUSE 153 



consistency of it. Commonly the Eskimos use a four- 

 foot long walking stick, about as big around as a broom 

 handle. You drive this down with a steady shove, and 

 if uniform pressure makes it go smoothly the snow is 

 right. But if the stick goes down easily enough for a 

 few inches, then requires a much harder shove to drive 

 it down the next few inches and then slips along easily 

 for a few inches more, your snow is unsuitable for it is 

 stratified and the cakes you cut from it will tend to break 

 into layers. 



When the right snowdrift has been selected you dig a 

 little pit with a shovel to get a good starting place for 

 cutting the blocks. Occasionally you are compelled to 

 build on a drift that is only a few inches deep and then 

 you have to cut your blocks horizontally, but if the snow 

 is uniform and the drift deep enough you prefer to cut 

 them vertically. The implement is a knife having a blade 

 from fourteen to eighteen inches long. The building 

 blocks should be about domino-shaped, say from twenty 

 to thirty inches long, from twelve to eighteen inches 

 wide. When you first cut them they may be any thick- 

 ness from four inches up, but if the block is too thick 

 you trim it down so that when finished it is only four 

 or five inches in thickness. 



In the case of the first snowhouse we built we had to 

 cut the snow in one place and build the house a few 

 yards off because in addition to hard snow you want 

 soft snow nearby to bank the house with after it is 

 erected. I watched the building of this first house so 

 carefully that I think I should have been able to build 

 one similar to it the next day. The procedure is really 

 very simple. 



Ovayuak took the first block and put it on edge the 



