CHAPTER VWINTER QUARTERS

Thematter of winter quarters is one of pronounced importance to polar travelers, ranking second only to the question of an abundant supply of food. Warmth, dryness, and abundance of light are the great desiderata. A knowledge of Eskimo methods of house-building, combined with a little ingenuity, enables these needs to be secured with few and simple materials.

In an experience extending over twenty-three years I have had occasion to prepare winter quarters afloat and ashore for parties of from three up. Many ideas were tried out, and most of them discarded as useless. Some were found of value, and utilizing these, I have introduced on different expeditions, and have tried out with most gratifying results, a new design for winter quarters the general principles of which I believe will be of value to future explorers in these regions. After I had had opportunities to study Eskimo principles and methods of house-building I gained new points, and could easily have adopted their practicein toto. With the addition of some materialsof civilization, it was possible, however, to improve upon their results. Now, given a tent, a pick-ax, and a shovel, a bale of pressed hay, a lamp, a few gallons of oil, and the wood of the cases in which my provisions were packed, I could make a winter habitation for from two to six men in which they would be just as comfortable as at home.

If the Eskimos, with their crude intelligence and almost utter lack of materials, can construct comfortable habitations to protect them and their children through the bitter, months-long winter night, surely the white man, with his superior intelligence and limitless range of material, should be able to do as well.

Headquarters for my expedition of 1891–93 were established in McCormick Bay, where I was sure of securing an abundance of fresh meat for my party of seven. The site for our winter home was selected only after most careful consideration. It was essential that it be on land high enough to insure dryness; that it be sheltered from strong winds, and yet get as much sunlight as possible. It should also be free from danger of snow or rock slides and from spring floods, and not too far from the shore.

A grassy knoll on the southern shore of the bay about a hundred feet from the water’s-edge was finally decided upon as meeting most fully our requirements. A brook on each side made a goodwater-supply certain. A hundred feet back of the house were brown cliffs, which had the disadvantage of cutting off the sun in the early spring and late autumn; but they served as a protection against the winds, and we felt this was the best we could do.

All material for the house was of course taken north with us, and on the way up was cut and fitted, ready to nail together and set up at once upon our arrival.

Red Cliff House, when finally completed, was a sort of house within a house, there being an inner frame that was separated from an outer frame by an air space ranging from ten inches on the sides to something over three feet in the middle of the roof. A sheathing of closely joined boards and two layers of tarred paper on the outside of the outer framework made it air-tight, while the inner house was made of heavy boards, and rendered air-tight by a coating of heavy brown paper.

COMPLETE POLAR WINTER HOUSEBefore banking in with snow

COMPLETE POLAR WINTER HOUSE

Before banking in with snow

A SCENE AT HUBBARDVILLE 82° 30´ N. LAT.One of the box houses in winter

A SCENE AT HUBBARDVILLE 82° 30´ N. LAT.

One of the box houses in winter

The interior was twenty-one feet long, twelve feet wide, and eight feet high, and was divided into two rooms. A wall was constructed all the way around the house, leaving a passageway of four feet between. For the lower portion of this wall, empty barrels, stones, and turf were used, while wooden boxes containing canned supplies, piled in regular courses on top of this foundation,formed the upper portion of the wall. I had the supply boxes made the same width and depth, but of different lengths, specially for this purpose. A roof of canvas extending from the house to the wall made a closed-in corridor, which we used as a storeroom. The boxes were stacked so that the covers could be opened from the inside, making their contents as easily accessible as if they were on pantry-shelves. This corridor was quite large enough to serve as a workroom, and here we made our sledges and other equipment necessary for sledge-journeys. When the snow came, a long snow entrance to the corridor was constructed; the roof was covered with a thick blanket of it, and the walls were banked, still further to protect us from the wintry blasts.

For our stove a pit was dug in the ground, so that the fire-box came below the level of the floor, thus insuring the warmth of air even down to the floor level, and lessening the danger of fire. To carry the stovepipe out so that it would not come into contact with the woodwork, we ran it through a double window the glass of which had been replaced with sheets of tin. Air-shafts were suitably arranged for carrying off moisture and bad air.

This done, heavy Indian blankets of bright red, adding warmth and color to the interior, were used to cover the walls and ceiling; bunks werebuilt along the wall; and with a few chairs and a table, a library, and our cooking-utensils, our home was ready for occupancy.

My expedition of 1893–95 had its headquarters at the head of Bowdoin Bay a few miles north of Red Cliff. Our home here was to accommodate a party of fourteen, just twice as many as were housed at Red Cliff, and consequently had to be made much larger than our first winter home. Anniversary Lodge, as this later came to be called, was built on the same general plan as Red Cliff House, with an inner air-tight shell separated from an outer air-tight shell by an air space from one to three feet in width. The roof was almost flat, and a closed-in corridor ranging from four to six feet in width, and with a nearly flat roof, surrounded the whole building. The outer wall of this was likewise made of boxes filled with supplies, and a covering of snow was used to protect it from winter weather. The floor was double, tongued and grooved, and lined with tarred paper. The inner and outer sheathing were also tongued and grooved, the former lined with blankets and felt, the latter covered inside and outside with tarred paper. The outer joints were covered with battens.

The house was divided into four rooms, the central part of it, fourteen feet long, nine feet wide, and eight feet high being partitioned off to serve as kitchen and dining-room while two end roomsopening from it were used for sleeping-quarters.

A window three feet high extended across the entire front of the main part of the house, and each sleeping-room had a window, protected by a storm-window, with an overhead sash to prolong the arctic day as long as possible. During the arctic night this sash was covered with hay. In addition to this a sky-light was built in the roof to catch the last rays of the departing sun, and during the winter it was covered with hay and a blanket of snow.

During the winter of 1894–95 my party was reduced to three members, including myself, and the winter quarters was modified to meet our requirements.

The central room was selected for our use. The partition between the kitchen and the dining-room was taken down, and a small stove set up in the middle of the forward part of the room. The stovepipe was carried out through one of the ventilator-shafts, and carefully wrapped in asbestos to prevent its burning the woodwork. The table was cut down to one-half its original size to meet our needs, and a wide bench extending the whole width of the room was built under the windows. Covered with a large bearskin, it was used as a seat in the daytime, and at night I slept on it.

The other two members of my party slept in the rear of the room. A platform was built three feet from the floor, with a distance of six feet betweenit and the back wall. Two cots were placed with their heads resting on the platform and their feet supported by cleats nailed to the rear wall. This arrangement is similar to the Eskimo method, giving the occupants a good circulation of air as well as lifting them out of the low temperature and drafts near the floor. These beds as well as my own were fitted with blanket curtains. Shelves were built under the bed platform and near the stove to hold our current supplies of coffee, flour, etc., and the space back of them was utilized for storage purposes.

A closet for dishes and books and another for medicines were built on the east wall of the room, while along the west side was our gun-rack, containing shot-guns, repeaters, carbines, and a Daly three-barrel gun. A clock, chronometers, barometers, barograph, etc., were hung above the gun-rack. A bird-net was suspended from the ceiling for drying out grass, which we used in the bottom of ourkamiks, and three barrel-hoops were placed about the stovepipe at the top of the room for drying our stockings,kamiks, mittens, and other articles of clothing.

The walls and ceiling of the room were decorated with magazine pictures, which not only covered the cracks, but made the room brighter and more cheerful. A large ten-gallon can served as a water-tank, and a pail for our coal and a molasses-kegchair completed the furniture of our living- and sleeping-room.

In the west room we kept our furs, clothing, and part of our equipment, while the east room was used for a general storeroom and workroom. In one end of it was our coal-bin, a barrel of sugar, and one of biscuit. The room was heated by a small stove, was furnished with a table and Eskimo lamp and a wide bench covered with skins, which served as a seat for our Eskimo seamstresses, who made all our fur clothing in this room. Our sledges and tent also were constructed here, and walrus meat was cut up and packed for the sledge-trips, so that the room was usually full of happy, noisy natives.

Most of the wall surrounding the house had been emptied of supplies during the previous year, and the empty boxes and barrels used for fuel. Now we had to find a new way to protect our room from the cold. Finally we dried thoroughly all our baled hay, and filled the spaces between the inner and outer framework of the house with it. We also reinforced the wall between our living-room and the east room by a wall of hay two and a half feet in thickness from the floor clear to the ceiling, finishing it with a small vestibule with double doors. The wall between our room and the west room we packed with furs. Outside protection was secured by placing fourlarge biscuit-casks along the side of the house under the windows of our room. Their tops came even with the window-sills, and hay was packed in the spaces between them and the house. When the snow came, everything was banked in snow three or four feet deep, a wall of snow-blocks was built along the east side of the house, a snow entrance erected, and we were snugly housed for the long winter night.

In these expeditions I gained a fairly thorough knowledge of Eskimo methods and principles of house-building, and it may not be amiss to give here my description from “Northward Over the Great Ice” of their winter igloos:

These igloos vary in size, from nine to fourteen feet in length inside, and occasionally two, more rarely three, are built close together, the party wall doing double duty and thus economizing material and labor. In plan and method of construction, each igloo is built like all the others. There is a long, low, narrow stone tunnel; a small standing room; a shallow platformed alcove on either side for meat and the stone lamps; and a large platformed alcove in the rear,—the family bed. A single small window of seal intestines over the entrance admits a little light.The construction of one of these primitive habitations, half excavated beneath, half built above the surface, would seem at first glance to demand nothing beyond a considerable outlay of manual labor in transporting and arranging the stones. Yet the spanning of a space twelve by fourteen feet in such a way as to support a heavy load of stones, turf, and snow, is not an entirely simple problem in a country where there is literally not a splinter of wood or anything that can serve as a substitute for it. Yet these children of the ice have met andsolved this problem with the cantilever principle, and the roofs of these old stone houses are every one supported with massive stone cantilevers, firm and unyielding as a masonry arch. In the plan and arrangement of his house, too, the Eskimo has met and solved each problem that confronted him, and though the entrance is never closed, yet no draught or current of air disturbs the quiet interior, the thick non-conducting walls of stone and turf are perfect insulators from the savage cold, and the heat from every drop of the precious oil burned in the stone lamps is fully conserved. Many of these igloos have every appearance of being centuries old. Vertebrae of the now extinct whale are almost invariably built into their walls and frequently such enormous stones are used in supporting the roofs, that it seems impossible they could have been handled without mechanical appliances.All the roof and bed platform stones, which must be large, flat and thin, as well as many of those for the walls, had to be brought by the men on their backs from the mountains, sometimes a distance of several miles. The construction of the igloos falls very largely upon the women, and in an emergency they even assist in bringing stones.These stone dwellings are occupied from the latter part of September till April or May, depending upon the season, locality, and movements of the occupants. By May they usually become very damp, and then the family betakes itself to its tupik, removing, at its departure from the igloo, the windows and a portion of the roof, so that throughout the summer the sun and wind may have free access to the interior. There is no ownership of these igloos beyond the period of actual occupancy. Any one of them is free to each and all, and it is the exception rather than the rule that a family lives in the same igloo, or in fact in the same place, two years in succession.... The building of a new igloo is rather a rarity, also, and is necessary only when, for some special reason, an unusually large number of natives are attracted to one place. Usually no more families locate in a place than the existing igloos will shelter.

The construction of one of these primitive habitations, half excavated beneath, half built above the surface, would seem at first glance to demand nothing beyond a considerable outlay of manual labor in transporting and arranging the stones. Yet the spanning of a space twelve by fourteen feet in such a way as to support a heavy load of stones, turf, and snow, is not an entirely simple problem in a country where there is literally not a splinter of wood or anything that can serve as a substitute for it. Yet these children of the ice have met andsolved this problem with the cantilever principle, and the roofs of these old stone houses are every one supported with massive stone cantilevers, firm and unyielding as a masonry arch. In the plan and arrangement of his house, too, the Eskimo has met and solved each problem that confronted him, and though the entrance is never closed, yet no draught or current of air disturbs the quiet interior, the thick non-conducting walls of stone and turf are perfect insulators from the savage cold, and the heat from every drop of the precious oil burned in the stone lamps is fully conserved. Many of these igloos have every appearance of being centuries old. Vertebrae of the now extinct whale are almost invariably built into their walls and frequently such enormous stones are used in supporting the roofs, that it seems impossible they could have been handled without mechanical appliances.

All the roof and bed platform stones, which must be large, flat and thin, as well as many of those for the walls, had to be brought by the men on their backs from the mountains, sometimes a distance of several miles. The construction of the igloos falls very largely upon the women, and in an emergency they even assist in bringing stones.

These stone dwellings are occupied from the latter part of September till April or May, depending upon the season, locality, and movements of the occupants. By May they usually become very damp, and then the family betakes itself to its tupik, removing, at its departure from the igloo, the windows and a portion of the roof, so that throughout the summer the sun and wind may have free access to the interior. There is no ownership of these igloos beyond the period of actual occupancy. Any one of them is free to each and all, and it is the exception rather than the rule that a family lives in the same igloo, or in fact in the same place, two years in succession.... The building of a new igloo is rather a rarity, also, and is necessary only when, for some special reason, an unusually large number of natives are attracted to one place. Usually no more families locate in a place than the existing igloos will shelter.

A temporary form of habitation used by the Eskimos at the spring walrus hunt at Cape Chalon, and sometimes when a death in winter drives a family out of the permanent habitation, is constructed of snow, lined, in the case of the more-well-to-do Eskimos, with their skintupiks, or tents.

These igloos are for use only for a few weeks. The Whale Sound Eskimos do not, like the Baffin Land tribes, use snow houses for their permanent winter habitations. The following is a description of one of these:

It was twelve feet long, by twelve feet wide, and seven feet high, in the highest part beneath the sealskin lining. The bed-platform, raised a foot and a half above the floor, was six and a half feet deep; and the standing room in front of it six feet by five feet. The window of seal intestines was two feet square. The igloo was lined throughout with the tupik or summer tent, so arranged as to leave an air space between it and the snow walls of the igloo, thus preventing the latter from melting, and keeping the interior dry. A small hole in the highest part of this lining, and another directly over it in the top of the igloo, afforded ventilation.

A long, low, narrow snow tunnel gave access to the igloo, and protected the interior from drafts or penetration by the furious spring storms.

AFTER A WINTER BLIZZARD“Roosevelt” surrounded by chaos of shattered and upheaved ice

AFTER A WINTER BLIZZARD

“Roosevelt” surrounded by chaos of shattered and upheaved ice

UNLOADING SHIP AT WINTER QUARTERSThe “Roosevelt” at Cape Sheridan

UNLOADING SHIP AT WINTER QUARTERS

The “Roosevelt” at Cape Sheridan

A still more temporary form is the small, rapidly constructed snow igloo used by traveling parties in winter and spring, and occupied only for a single night unless the travelers are held bystorms. This is the kind of igloo invariably used by my parties on their sledging-trips.

The Eskimos can nearly always tell who built an igloo. Though they are all constructed on one general principle, there are always peculiarities of individual workmanship which are readily recognized by these experienced children of the North, whose horizon is so narrow that they see and remember every minute trifle.

The fundamental principle of all these houses is that warm air is lighter than cold and rises. The level of the bed and living-platform in an Eskimo igloo is always higher than the highest part of the entrance opening. In the best of the permanent winter igloos the entrance is through the floor. As a result of this construction, every bit of warm air is retained in the igloo, and the long and—whenever practicable—downward-sloping entrance tunnel prevents even the most violent air-waves of furious blizzards from penetrating the quiet interior. The vertical variations in temperature in the winter igloo of a successful hunter who has good store of blubber to keep the stove-lamps going are pronounced. On the bed platform, at the level of the lamps, the host and hostess and children are usually in their birthday suits, unless the lady, in deference to the presence of a guest, assumes a strip of seal skin half an inch wide. If one stands, bringingthe head to the top of the igloo, it is like putting one’s head into a furnace. Yet a drop of water spilled on the floor of the igloo, a foot below the level of the bed platform, is instantly frozen into ice.

On several subsequent expeditions my parties wintered on board ship, and this introduced new elements. The first thing to be done by any well-managed polar expedition on reaching winter quarters is to land everything in the way of supplies and equipment and fuel, and to erect suitable shelter for the entire party ashore as a precaution against fire or other mishap to the ship. The ship should, in fact, be emptied completely.

My first practical working out of this proposition was with theWindwardat Cape D’Urville in the winter of 1898–99. The boxes of supplies landed here were erected into a compact house, with a box-tunnel entrance, fitted with a small stove, and banked in completely with gravel, which in winter of course became covered with snow, giving the appearance of a snow-drift. This house, in addition to serving as insurance for the party during 1898 and 1899 in case of the loss of theWindward, lying unprotected in the ice offshore, was during the three following years a welcome haven and refuge for my parties sledging from Etah and Payer Harbor to Fort Conger.

This box-house idea was greatly extended anddeveloped in my last two expeditions of 1905–06 and 1908–09 in theRoosevelt.

At Cape Sheridan, the winter quarters for these last two expeditions, we built box houses ashore, using the boxes containing supplies just as we did in previous years, and packing them in firmly with hay. The packing of our supplies for this purpose in boxes of certain sizes was one of the many details which determined the success of the expedition. The heavy cases of bacon, pemmican, flour, etc., were used as so many blocks in the construction of several houses about thirty feet long and fifteen feet wide. For roofs, sails thrown over boat-spars or beams were used, and later were covered in solid with snow. A stove set up in these made good workrooms for the Eskimos through the winter. On the last trip north, when theRooseveltwas caught in the grip of the ice, the Eskimos became so thoroughly frightened that they picked up their belongings and took to the box houses for the night, some of them spending the rest of the winter in them or in snow igloos.

The adjacent shore for a quarter of a mile was lined with the remaining boxes of supplies, each item of provisions having a pile to itself. This packing-box village was called Hubbardville.

Had we lost theRooseveltat Cape Sheridan, we should have spent the winter in the box houseswhich we constructed, and in the spring should have made the dash for the pole just the same. We should have then walked the 350 miles to Cape Sabine, crossed the Smith Sound ice to Etah, and waited for a ship.

The second new element introduced into my later expeditions by the presence of a ship was the preparation of the ship itself for winter quarters.

A partial beginning at this was made on theWindward, where my own personal quarters were an Erie Railroad caboose given to me by my friend Eben Thomas, president of that road. This caboose I put on the deck of theWindwardbetween the mainmast and foremast, and bolted it down like any deck-house. In the autumn at Cape D’Urville, when the temperatures began to go down seriously, I had my Eskimos incase and cover it in with a wall of snow-blocks, and build a beehive-shaped vestibule or storm entrance of snow-blocks round the door.

This arrangement, in its comfort, facility of ventilation, freedom from the moisture and condensation incident to the quarters of the others below decks and the old system of ships’ quarters, was so superior that I was convinced the only place for the quarters of a polar ship was on deck.

In building theRooseveltI put the quarters for every one, officers, crew, and Eskimos, on deck, and in the two expeditions of 1905–06 and 1908–09, in wintering at Cape Sheridan, I worked out fullywhat I believe to be the most comfortable and satisfactory method of ship’s winter quarters.

As a result, the officers and crew of my last two expeditions had light and roomy accommodations on deck, a great improvement over the old method of housing a party below decks, as in all old-fashioned ships, and even in ships built comparatively recently for polar work.

My assistants and the ship’s officers were quartered in a deck-house between the mainmast and mizzenmast. The deck-house extended clear across the ship, was low-posted,—seven feet from floor to ceiling,—and contained the cook’s galley and domain as well as our quarters. It was plainly and strongly constructed, sheathed inside, and special care was taken, by the use of heavy building paper, double planking, and close joints, to have no cracks or joints for the entrance of cold air.

The journey north in the ship, being a summer coasting voyage, with no danger from high or heavy seas, and the deck-house being above the main structure of the ship, I was able to put in large plate-glass ports along the sides to light the interior; and for the same reason I was able to put real windows—four in all, double and of special heavy glass—in the forward and after end of the deck-house, with generous panes of glass in the upper part of each of the four doors, two forward and two aft, which opened into it.

This arrangement made the quarters immeasurably pleasanter and more sanitary. On the upward voyage we got full value of all the sunlight there was, ventilation was perfect, and from my stateroom I could at all times command the situation; and if I was needed on the bridge, it was only a step through the door to the deck, and two jumps up the ladder to the bridge. The great value of this large window area was in the late autumn and early spring, when it gave us in each case about two weeks more of daylight in our quarters, and shortened by just so much the long period of continuous lamplight. The arrangement was also invaluable for those left on board when the main spring sledge-parties left for their work, and for the sledge-parties themselves in the weeks of waiting after their return in May or June till the ship could break out of her winter quarters in July or August.

My polar experience has made me a fanatic on the subject of light. My little summer cottage on the bluff point of a rocky islet off the Maine coast has so many windows that it is known by the surrounding inhabitants as the “glass house.” Sun-worship seems to me the most natural of religions, and I wonder why all primitive peoples were not devotees of it.

My crew and Eskimos were quartered in a long, commodious topgallant forecastle, which extendedfrom the heel of the bowsprit to well aft of the foremast. This fo’c’sle, like the after deck-house, extended the full width of the ship, and was low posted,—six and a half feet from deck to ceiling,—and also had large ports along the sides, and large windows in the after end, looking out on the main-deck. A fore-and-aft bulkhead its entire length divided it into two equal parts. The starboard side was assigned to the crew and the port side to the Eskimos.

Around the walls of the Eskimo half of the fo’c’sle was built a wide platform, three or four feet above the deck, to simulate the internal arrangement of their usual winter houses. The quarters of each family were partitioned off by boards, and curtains screened the front. They were supplied with oilstoves, pots, pans, plates, etc., and cooked their meat and anything else they wanted, eating when the spirit moved, as is the custom among these people. Beans, hash, or anything of that kind provided from the ship’s stores were cooked for them, and they were also supplied with tea, coffee, and bread by the steward.

The winter of 1908–09 theRooseveltlay at Cape Sheridan, parallel to the shore, just over the edge of the ice-foot bank. Her nose pointed north, her port side was next the shore. On that side, between ship and shore, a distance of a hundred yards, was the shallow ice-foot lagoon, coveredwith one season’s ice. On the starboard side was the heavy polar ice, and a short distance from the ship a depth of twenty fathoms.

The experience of the previous expedition had shown that a severe westerly storm or the grounding of a heavy floe at a point where it would deflect the moving ice against the ship, or a big floe rotating down the shore on the surge of the spring-tides might at any time send a cataract of ice against theRooseveltwith a force which, if not deflected, might push the ship high and dry ashore. To assist the ice in turning down and passing under the ship when such pressure came I had the heavy ice cut away round the ship on a bevel toward the ship’s sides, with the inner edge in contact with the ship down to or below the water-level.

Small pieces of ice and snow were then banked against the ship’s sides up to the deck-level. The object of this was twofold, to help by its weight to turn the ice under the ship when the pressure came, and also to blanket the ship against the winter storms and bitter cold. On top of this embankment a wall or armor-plating of snow-blocks from a foot to eighteen inches thick was built as high as the tops of the deck-houses both forward and aft. The tops of the deck-houses were covered with an equal thickness, and the thwartship ends of the deck-houses protected by similar walls. Entrances to the after deck-houseto the fo’c’sle, and to the Eskimo quarters were guarded by roomy beehive-shaped snow houses, with a small low door opening out upon the deck.

AN INOPPORTUNE SNOWSTORM

Behind this snow-armor protection against the siege of the frost king, we passed the winter in complete comfort, with a minimum expenditure of fuel, with perfect ventilation, with very little of the moisture and condensation which is usually the bugbear of polar ship’s quarters, and with instant and easy access to the outside for work or in an emergency. The snow armor costs nothing; it is found on the spot, and therefore takes no room on the upward voyage, and when it has served its purpose it is thrown overboard.

During the successive expeditions north I also had several other experiences in building winter quarters, some of which may be of interest.

The Erie Railroad caboose mentioned above, which was used as a deck-house on theWindwardduring the winter of 1898–99, served also a second season at Etah. In the summer of 1899, after theWindwardbroke out of the ice at Cape D’Urville, she returned to Etah, and here I had the caboose hoisted over the side, floated ashore, and hauled up to a place which I had selected. From one end of this a long workroom was built with the boxes of provisions, and roofed over with a sail. The Eskimos of my immediate party constructed their winter houses with entrances leading into this common workroom, and thewhole group was then buried deep in snow, forming an entirely comfortable habitation for the entire party.

Another experience was at Payer Harbor. When the remodeledWindwardwent north in 1901 she had a commodious and well-built deck-house forward that had been constructed for quarters for her officers. On my decision to remain north another year, remembering my experience at Etah, I decided to save my party the valuable time and labor incident to constructing winter quarters by utilizing this deck-house. Captain Sam Bartlett and his men lifted it from the deck, lowered it over the side, ran it over the heavy harbor ice on timber shoes, and with tackles and falls hauled it up the rocks to the place that I had selected for it.

Here, after the ship had left, we banked it in completely as high as the bottom of the portholes with loose dry gravel, which is abundant at Payer Harbor, and when the snow came, covered it completely, roof and all, with an armor of two-foot-thick snow-blocks, carefully laid and cemented together by throwing water on the joints. A double snow igloo, Eskimo style, at the entrance kept out completely the furious winds which howled incessantly past Cape Sabine and Payer Harbor, and we lived here through the winter of 1901–02 in perfect comfort, with a minimum expenditure of fuel.

The third and perhaps most interesting experience was at Fort Conger, the headquarters of the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition. Returning here in June, 1900, from my long sledge-journey round the northern end of Greenland, in which I proved the insularity of that island continent, I waited at Fort Conger through the summer on the possibility that an auxiliary ship might come north and be able to reach me.

When late in the season it became evident that no ship would arrive, I took up the matter of the winter quarters for my small party, consisting, beside myself, of Henson, the doctor, and several Eskimos. The utilization of the building known as Fort Conger was entirely out of the question. This great barn of a structure, sixty feet long by thirty feet wide, was grotesque in its utter unfitness and unsuitableness for polar winter quarters. With its great size, its light construction, and its high-posted rooms, nine or ten feet from floor to ceiling, it embodied about everything that should not be found in winter quarters.

One possibility would have been to construct in the center of one of the great rooms of this building a small room with material taken from other parts of the house, utilizing the big house simply as a wind-break, and constructing the small apartment in the proper way, with double walls, low ceiling, and tight joints.

After some consideration, however, I gave upthis idea, and decided upon three small structures outside of the big house and made partly of material from it. For myself, partly to economize the lumber, partly as a practical experiment, and partly to furnish occupation and amusement for myself, as I still was somewhat incapacitated from taking part in the hunting-trips over the rocks and frozen ground as the result of the accident to my feet the year before, I decided to make for myself a winter den, as perhaps it might be called, from an eight by twelve A tent, which I found among the things at Conger, as a nucleus.

First I made an eight-by-twelve-foot floor of boards resting directly upon a bed of gravel. The idea of air spaces round a polar dwelling as an insulation against the cold is, like many other ideas connected with the polar regions, a pure fallacy. At each corner of this floor I drove a post, sawing it off four feet above the ground, connected the tops of these posts with horizontal joists, boarded up to this joist with odds and ends of old boards, and banked in to the top of this boarding with the surrounding gravel, working in against the boards, as the gravel bank gradually rose, a two-or-three-inch thickness of grass, which grows somewhat abundantly in the neighborhood of Conger.

On top of these joists I erected the tent, putting in a few intermediate rafters on each side of the ridge-pole to prevent the side of the tent fromsagging; fitted a small door-frame and door into one end of the tent; and on the sides two window-frames and windows taken from the big house; then covered the tent completely, roof and gable ends, with the straw-filled mattresses taken from the men’s quarters of the big house. A chimney made from a few lengths of vitrified sewer-pipe found in the material at Conger, a stove constructed from a ten-gallon sheet-iron oil tin, one of the cots from the big house, a table, and a chair completed the outfit.

Later, when the snow came, a wall of snow-blocks eighteen inches in thickness was carefully laid, inclosing the entire tent, each course as it was laid being sprinkled with water brought up from the bay, the joints cemented in the same manner, and after all was done, bucketful after bucketful of water dashed over the structure until it was essentially a single block of ice. A low, narrow, covered snow-tunnel entrance, with storm-door at the outer end, gave access to the tent.

In this structure I passed the polar winter at Fort Conger in entire comfort, using for fuel chips, old papers, bits of tarred paper, and the like picked up during the summer about Fort Conger. To give an idea of the complete insulation of this place from the external cold, I found, on returning from some of the autumn hunting-trips, that I could warm the interior of my tent toa comfortable temperature by the judicious burning of a yard of tar roofing paper in my sheet-iron stove.

Winter quarters should be as warm and comfortable as possible, as a matter of improving the effectiveness of the personnel. In this they play a very important part. Men who have passed the winter in comfort and ample warmth have more vitality and endurance and will stand the strain and exposure of the spring sledge-journey better than men who have been uncomfortable and chilly through the winter. This is just as definite a proposition as that Eskimo dogs that have been well fed during the winter will stand the sledge-journey better than dogs that have been half fed. The ideas of toughening one’s self against the cold, of training for the sledge-journey, of inuring one’s self to scant rations, are fallacies.

The Eskimos, through generation of life in the polar regions, have worked out from stern experience the true practice in all such life questions, and we find them keeping their winter habitations heated up to the nineties, and we find them gorging themselves with food when food is to be had. As a result, when the necessity arises, they are in condition, and have a reserve vitality which enables them to endure bitter cold and to go for a long time on scant food.

Even the animals, the musk-ox, the reindeer,the hare, know the trick, and during the summer eat incessantly and travel little, and thus get themselves in condition for the bitter winter when it requires incessant travel to secure starvation rations.

After the question of suitable quarters for a party comes the problem of keeping them in good spirits during the four months of darkness, the secret of which lies in keeping each member busy and in varying the monotony of the work as much as possible. For this purpose much of my material was taken north in the rough, and the work of shaping it—building sledges for our spring work, making harnesses for the dogs, our fur clothing, and other equipment—as well as regular hunting-trips, kept time from hanging heavily on our hands. The younger members of the party invariably went out on hunting-parties during the eight or ten days of moonlight each month, those who went into the field one moon staying on the ship the next. The coming and going of these parties gave plenty to talk about and to look forward to.

As for hedging my men about with rigorous rules, I believe it is not necessary, and have never done it. Much of the routine of ship life was laid aside while we were in winter quarters, there being only the watches of the regular day and night watchmen, the only regular bells being a signalfor all noise to cease at ten in the evening, and another for lights to be turned out at midnight. Meals were served at regular hours in the mess-rooms, and lights were supposed to be out at midnight, but were not forbidden if a man wanted one after that time. For the Eskimos there was one rigid rule—no noise was to be made by them after the ten o’clock bell until eight the next morning. And they knew, if they were up late at night, they would be expected to go on with their work of building sledges and making fur clothing as usual the next day. The engineers and sailors, besides attending to their regular work, sometimes helped with the equipment, but seldom went out on hunting-trips.

I had a fairly complete arctic library in my cabin, and these books were borrowed one at a time by the different members of the expedition. We also had a good collection of the best novels, which did much to while away the long evenings, and a pianola, the gift of a friend, gave us all great pleasure. The sailors amused themselves with games of checkers, dominoes, cards, in story-telling, boxing, and in contests of strength with the Eskimos. A banjo or an accordion was in almost every party, and frequent phonograph concerts in charge of the steward, Percy, varied the monotony. Holidays like Christmas, New Year’s, Thanksgiving, and birthdays were observedby a special dinner, with a table-cloth and our best dishes, with perhaps games or sports afterward. On all my expeditions few, if any, complaints of homesickness or monotony were made.

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