Dwellings 59. 



wind drove eddies of snow inside their tent under its flapping edges, so they 

 built a low circular wall of snow-blocks and raised their tent on that. A few 

 weeks later in similar circumstances they made a wall with turf instead of snow. 

 It was only about a foot high, but it anchored down the edges of their tent and 

 kept the rain from flooding it. In August of the same year, during a gaie of 

 driving sleet and snow, two men without a tent stretched some deerskins over 

 a gap between two crags and weathered it out in comparative comfort. Mc- 

 Clintock mentions the case of an old woman near Pond's bay (Pond's inlet) 

 who had neither hut nor tent, but a sort of lair constructed of a few stones and 

 a seal-slcin spread over them, so that she could crawl underneath. ^ These, how- 

 ever, aye exceptional cases. Normally the Copper Eskimo* lives in a snow-hut 

 through the winter months, and moves into a deer-skin tent as soon as the warmth 

 of spring renders his house untenable. 



The first step^ in constructing a snow-hut is to find a suitable site. Not 

 only must the snow be deep enough but it must also possess a certain firmness. 

 It must not be crumbly, as it is when granular, or soft as when freshly fallen, 

 otherwise the blocks will fall to pieces at the slightest touch; as for its depth, 

 that should be at "least a foot. There are two ways of cutting snow-blocks, 

 horizontally and vertically, and it depends on the depth of snow which one the 

 native will employ. In the former method a rectangle is cut to the size required 

 and the block is undercut for as far as the knife will reach. A kick below will 

 now release it, and slightly raise one side so that it can be lifted in the hands. 

 Sometimes careful pressure with the foot on tpp will break it off where a kick 

 beneath would crack it. The depth at which the undercut is made decides the 

 thickness of the block. This is the only method possible when the snow is 

 shallow. Vertical cutting requires deep snowj for here it is the width of the 

 block that is regulated by the depth. A few rapid cuts with the knife, a few 

 vigorous kicks to scatter the loose snow, and a space is cleared from which the 

 first block can be cut away. A cut on each side gives it its length, and the 

 knife is run backwards and forwards underneath to give the width of the block 

 One face and the sides are now clear, and all that remains to be done is to deter- 

 mine its thickness and separate the remaining face. This is the only delicate 

 part of the operation. The first cut must not be deep, otherwise the block will 

 be sure to crack on one side before the knife has reached the other. Usually 

 the man runs his knife along the back face twice, cutting free about half its 

 surface; then he stabs it down about the middle, when the block breaks off as 

 a rule and falls towards him. If this should not release it he stabs it again 

 on the side that he thinks is holding, and sometimes on the other side as well. 

 Once 'the first block has been extracted the others proceed more easily, since 

 there is more open space in which to work and their shape is already half out- 

 lined. Vertical cutting is quicker and easier than cutting horizontally, besides 

 which there is more snow in the same surface area. Then too the deeper down 

 you cut in making your house the less high you have to build. It makes no 

 difference if you come to ice, for a floor of ice is quite as good as one of snow. 

 A deep snow-drift gives you half your wall already built. With a small house 

 almost all the blocks required can be taken from the floor, but should more 

 be needed they can soon be obtained outside and pushed in through an opening 

 cut in the bottom of the wall. 



One or sometimes two men therefore build up the house from the inside, 

 while the housewife and the children make an outer rampart all around it 

 about six inches or a foot away, and fill the interspace with soft snow. The 

 arrangement of the first tier of blocks naturally determines the size and shape 

 of the subsequent house. A Mackenzie native who was building us a hut in 



iMoClintock, p. 133. 



'Cf. Stefansson's account in Anthrop. Papers, A.M.N.H., Vol. XIV, pt. I, p. 6 etseq., and Amund- 

 sen, Vol. II, ch. VIII. 



