The country around was bright with flowers. Tracks of reindeer, foxes, and hares were repeatedly noticed, and seals and walruses abounded, so that the party had no fear of suffering for want of fresh meat.
Setting Fox Traps.
The wood for the house was taken off the ship. In order to insure warmth, the walls were made double, with an air space of ten inches between the outer and inner wall. The house was then covered with tarred paper, and the inner walls lined with thick, red, Indian blankets. In addition, a wind-break of stones, turf, empty barrels, and boxes was built around the house. The dwelling was roofed with canvas, and in the winter was to be banked with snow. When the little building was completed, they christened it Red Cliff House, because of the cliffs of sandstone which rose behind it.
When the stores were safely stowed away within the outer wall, the Kite steamed away home, leaving Peary, with his wife and his assistants, to spend the winter within seven hundred and forty miles of the North Pole.
Peary and his party were very comfortable and contented. They enjoyed the crisp air and the bright sunshine, and they liked to watch the beautiful blue-green colors in the ice of the glaciers.
The men hunted, and secured numbers of reindeer skins and furs of all sorts. They fished, and explored the surrounding islands. While on these trips they sometimes met Eskimos, who often accompanied them to Red Cliff House. Some of the Eskimos came with their dog teams, and Peary was always glad to buy the dogs from them. By November 7 there were seventeen men, women, and children at the camp, and Peary built a large snow hut for them to live in.
Soon the long night began and all hunting came to an end. Then the members of the party busied themselves preparing for the great journey over the inland ice which Peary intended to make in the spring. The reindeer skins were stretched and dried and prepared for clothing by the Eskimo women. In order to soften the skin so that it could be used for clothing, the women folded it once with the hair inside. Then they chewed it all along the edge until the fold was made pliable. Another fold was then made, and treated in the same manner. This process was continued until the entire skin had been carefully chewed. It was then scraped, and if necessary, the work was repeated. It took two of Peary’s best workers about a day to prepare a large buckskin. The teeth of the Eskimo women are often worn down nearly to the gums by doing this work.
Peary himself cut the patterns of the clothes and sleeping bags, and the Eskimo women did the sewing. Peary’s men busied themselves in trying to make sledges lighter and stronger than anything they had yet found. They fashioned ivory and horn braces for the sledges. Some of the Eskimo men helped to make ivory rings for the dogs’ harness. The Eskimo women chewed and sewed, and everybody was busy and happy.
A large number of Eskimos visited Peary during the winter, some coming from a distance of two hundred miles. When the white men could not pronounce the queer names of the Eskimos, they gave them nicknames. A certain trio were known as the Priest, the Smiler, and the Villain. The Villain was an entirely harmless Eskimo, whose chief failing was his huge appetite.