Rules for the march.
The following rules to be observed on the march or during a halt are valuable and practical to a degree. “Keep the blood in motion without loitering on the march; and for the halt raise a snow house, or, if the snow lie scant or impracticable, ensconce yourself in a burrow, or under the hospitable lee of an inclined hammack-slab. The outside fat of your walrus sustains your little moss fire; its frozen slices give you bread; its frozen blubber gives you butter; its scrag ends make the soup. The snow supplies you with water, and when you are ambitious of coffee there is a bagful stowed away in your boot. Spread out your bear bag, your only heavy movable, and stuff your reindeer bag inside, hang your boots up outside, take a blade of bone and scrape off all the ice from your furs. Now crawl in, the whole party of you, feet foremost, draw the top of your dormitory close, heading to leeward.”
SLEDGING OVER ROUGH ICE.
Useful odds and ends.
Dogs’ boots.
When about to start on a sledge journey, a certain number of useful matters will be required in addition to those already mentioned. A few green or blue gauze or tarlatan veils, to protect the eyes from the glare of the snow, will be found of the greatest value. In the absence of these, sledge men not uncommonly collect a quantity of the deposit of black found in the sconces of the lamps. This they mix with grease, and with it black the eyelids and upper part of the face. This expedient, although not equal to a veil, is far better than nothing. We have made use of green glass spectacles, but found them next to useless, as the glasses soon became coated with ice, formed from the condensed vapour given off with the breath. Never travel without a small pocket mirror; by its aid you can discover at once whether your nose or ears are becoming frost bitten, and can act accordingly. Directions for the treatment of frost bite will be given further on in our work. Never go without your possible sack, which should contain lots of hide strips, of all lengths and sizes, awls, needles, cord, leather, knife, whetstone, and any number of bone rings and toggles. A large fine-toothed rasp is of great service in fashioning bone; take one, or more; one handle will serve for all, and the sharp, tang ends serve to bore holes with. Few men have managed to reduce their sledge equipment to more simple elements than the doctor. He says, “My plans for sledging, simple as I once thought them, and simple, certainly, as compared with those of the English parties, have completely changed. Give me an 8lb. reindeer fur bag to sleep in, an Esquimaux lamp, with a lump of moss, a sheet-iron snow melter, or a copper soup pot, with a tin cylinder to slip over and defend it from the wind, a good pièce de résistance of raw walrus beef, and I want nothing more for a long journey if the thermometer will keep itself as high as minus 30°. Dogs’ boots.Give me a bearskin bag, and coffee to boot, and with the clothes on my back I am ready for minus 60°, but no wind.”