32 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE KARLUK 
had always used snowshoes and I had never had a 
pair of ski on my feet. Mamen now persuaded me 
to try skiing and a rare sport I found it. Not far 
from the ship we had a ski-jump, made by filling 
in an ice-rafter about thirty feet high with blocks 
of ice; we covered it with snow and then over all 
splashed water which froze and made the surface 
very slippery. We would climb up the back of the 
jump on the soft snow by side-stepping on our ski 
and then coast down the front. Mamen showed 
me how to do the telemark swing. 
We would walk out to the water-holes on ski, 
with a shotgun apiece, in search of ducks. For 
several days we had no luck because many of the 
water-holes where the birds were in the habit of 
resting in their flight were frozen over. Finally on 
the fifteenth we went out again and did somewhat 
better. When we shot any birds, however, the 
young ice that formed in the leads made it difficult 
to get them. We would then break off a piece of 
ice large enough and thick enough to hold us and, 
standing on it as on a raft, push along with our 
ski-poles and work around to pick up the birds. 
The ice we pushed through was perhaps a quarter 
of an inch thick, and we would break it ahead as 
we went along. 
Salt water does not freeze so easily as fresh 
water, on account of the salt, but when it does 
