By the time Christmas approached I had reason indeed for rejoicing. Although this happy season meant little to me as a holiday of gift-giving and feasting, it came with auguries for success in the thing my heart most dearly desired, and compared to which earth had nothing more alluring to give.
Our equipment was now about complete. In the box house were tiers of new sledges, rows of boxes and piles of bags filled with clothing, canned supplies, dried meat, and sets of strong dog harness. The food, fuel and camp equipment for the Polar dash were ready. Everything had been thoroughly tested and put aside for a final examination. Elated by our success, and filled with gratitude to the faithful natives, I declared a week of holidays, with rejoicing and feasting. Feasting was at this time especially desirable, for we had now to fatten up for the anticipated race.
Christmas day in the Arctic does not dawn with the glow which children in waking early to seek their bedecked tree, view outside their windows in more southern lands. Both Christmas day and Christmas night are black. Only the stars keep their endless watch in the cold skies.
Standing outside my igloo on the happy night, I gazed at the Pole Star, the guardian of the goal I sought, and I remembered with a thrill the story of that mysterious star the Wise Men had followed, of the wonders to which it led them, and I felt an awed reverence for the Power that set these unfaltering beacons above the earth and had written in their golden traces, with a burning pen, veiled and unrevealed destinies which men for ages have tried to learn.
I retired to sleep with thoughts of home. I thought of my children, and the bated expectancy with which they were now going to bed, of their hopefulness of the morrow, and the unbounded joy they would have in gifts to which I could not contribute. I think tears that night wet my pillow of furs. But I would give them, if I did not fail, the gift of a father's achievement, of which, with a glow, I felt they should be proud.
The next morning the natives arrived at the box house early. It had been cleared of seamstresses and workmen the day before, and put in comparatively spick and span order. I had told the natives they were to feed to repletion during the week of holiday, an injunction to the keeping of which they did not need much urging.
Early Christmas morning, men and women began working overtime on the two festive meals which were to begin that day and continue daily.
About this time, the most important duty of our working force had been to uncover caches and dig up piles of frozen meat and blubber. Of this, which possesses the flavor and odor of Limburger cheese, and also the advantage, if such it be, of intoxicating them, the natives are particularly fond. While a woman held a native torch of moss dipped in oils and pierced with a stick, the men, by means of iron bars and picks, dug up boulders of meat just as coal is forced from mines.
A weird spectacle was this, the soft light of the blubber lamp dancing on the spotless snows, the soot-covered faces of the natives grinning while they worked. The blubber was taken close to their igloos and placed on raised platforms of snow, so as to be out of reach of the dogs. Of this meat and blubber, which was served raw, partially thawed, cooked and also frozen, the natives partook during most of their waking hours. They enjoyed it, indeed, as much as turkey was being relished in my far-away home.
Moreover they had, what was an important delicacy, native ice cream. This would not, of course, please the palate of those accustomed to the American delicacy, but to the Eskimo maiden it possesses all the lure of creams, sherberts or ice cream sodas. With us, sugar in the process of digestion turns into fat, and fat into body fuel. The Eskimo, having no sugar, yearns for fat, and it comes with the taste of sweets.