A soapstone lamp on a large stone in front of the platform, where it can be tended by the woman at night, burns day and night, warming the igloo so that little clothing is needed, and also serving as a stove for cooking. For fuel, for light, heat, and cooking, small pieces of blubber are cut, and laid in the shallow lamp close to a long wick of pulverized moss. The burning moss, trying out the oil of the blubber, gives a remarkably hot flame. Formerly they used flint and steel from a vein of pyrite for ignition, and pieces of soapstone, of which there are a few veins in their country, were used for lamps and pots. They now are supplied with matches and lamps and cooking-utensils of metal.
While a night spent in one of these ill-smelling homes with a family of Eskimos is not exactly pleasant, a man engaged in polar work cannot be too particular, and warmth, supper, and sleep even amid such surroundings are welcome to a tired, cold and hungry traveler at the end of a long march.
In the spring these houses become damp and unfit for habitation. The roofs are removed to dry the interior, and the family takes up its residence in a tupik, or tent of skin, from June to September. Tents are made of ten or twelve sealskins sewed together. This large piece is stretched on poles, with the hair inside, and is high in front and slopes toward the back, the edges being weighted down with stones. The floor of earth varies according to the size of the family from six to eight feet in width and from eight to ten feet in length.
ESKIMO WOMAN, FULL SUMMER COSTUME
ESKIMO MAN, SUMMER COSTUME
One of the most valuable things we have learned from the Eskimos is the building of snow houses, a necessity when a party is in the field during the winter months. A snow igloo can be built by four good men in about an hour. First blocks of snow are cut out with strong, stiff saw-knives about a foot and a half long, with saw-teeth on one side and a smooth cutting-edge on the other. The blocks for the bottom layer are sometimes two or three feet long by two feet high,—sometimes smaller,—while those for each succeeding layer are made smaller and less heavy. If the snow is hard, the blocks need to be only six or eight inches thick; but when the snow is soft, they must be thicker in order to hold their shape. Each block is placed on a curve to make an ovoid when all are put together. For a party of three men the interior of an igloo should be about eight by five feet; for five men these measurements should be increased to ten by eight feet to allow for a wider bed platform.
If possible a sloping snow-bank is selected for the site of the house, and when enough snow blocks have been cut out, an Eskimo takes his place here, and as the rest bring up the blocks, setting them on edge end to end in an ovoid about him, he fits and joints them with a snow knife.
The second row is placed on the first with a slight inward slope, each block being held in position by the one on either side. On this another layer of blocks is set; and so on, each slanting inward a little more than the tier below it, until at last there is an opening at the top just large enough to take one block.