172 HUNTERS OF THE GREAT NORTH 



stitious fear of going to sleep outdoors in cold weather. 

 It is not the sleeping, however, that is dangerous to a 

 tired man but rather that he does not go to sleep soon 

 enough. If you exert yourself onty moderately you will 

 not perspire, and so long as you do not perspire your 

 clothes will keep reasonably dry, at least for the first 

 day or two after you start on a journey. The Eskimos 

 know how to keep their clothes dry indefinitely but 

 the runaway whalers did not know how to do that. This 

 was not the trouble, however, but rather that they worked 

 themselves into a sweat, struggled along until they were 

 soaking wet and dead tired, and then finally went into a 

 sleep that ended in death. 



My own practice through many years has been to lie 

 down in the open and go to sleep whenever I feel like it. 

 I have frequently done this on winter nights under the 

 stars, with a temperature in the vicinity of 50 ° and 55 ° 

 below zero, or as cold as it ever gets in the arctic regions. 

 I find that in fifteen or twenty minutes the cold wakes 

 me up. That is not much of a nap, but when I get up 

 from it I feel a good deal refreshed and go on until I get 

 too sleepy again, when I take a second nap. The fear of 

 going to sleep in extreme cold is not only unfounded but 

 is actually the cause of many deaths in the polar regions. 

 Men struggle ahead and keep awake as long as they can. 

 Finally exhaustion compels them to sleep. It is then 

 they are in danger of freezing and never waking. 



The Eskimo sled had contained besides our food and 

 camping gear a bag <>f my clothing. In the warmth of the 

 Amundsen cabin I changed after breakfast into dry 

 clothes. We reached Shingle Point easily by mid-after- 

 noon. 



