98 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE KARLUK 
The snow igloo was fifteen feet long and twelve 
feet wide, with rafters and a canvas roof. The 
box-house was twenty-five feet long by eighteen 
feet wide, well banked up all around with snow. 
We partitioned off one end of the box-house to 
make the galley and put a big stove in it so that 
the cook could have a place by himself. We also 
built another house for the Eskimo. McKinlay 
afterwards drew a plan of Shipwreck Camp, as 
we called it, which will show how our dwelling- 
places and supplies were arranged. 
So here we were, like the Swiss Family Robin¬ 
son, well equipped for comfortable living, waiting 
until the return of the sun should give us daylight 
enough for ice travel, which was altogether too ex¬ 
acting and dangerous to attempt in the dark. I 
did not consider it wise to use up the energy of 
men and dogs when they were still unaccustomed 
to travelling over the sea-ice and before there was 
light enough to make their work effective. 
The place where the ship had gone down was 
frozen over. The ice had simply opened for a 
while and then closed up again, and young ice had 
formed in the opening. 
On the thirteenth we began sewing and kept it 
up day in and day out. We had done a good deal 
of sewing on shipboard, but I told the men that we 
must have plenty of fur clothing and skin-boots and 
