Peter the Whaler

by William Henry Giles Kingston

We fancied that we had got everything comfortable for the winter, which now, about the middle of October, began to set in with severe earnestness, with heavy falls of snow and strong northerly winds. Our house, on which we had so much prided ourselves, did not keep out the cold blast as we expected; and though we covered ourselves up with blankets, and sails, and skins, and kept up a constant fire in the little stove we had brought from the cabin of the wreck, we were almost perished with cold.

It was after a very severe night, and we were consulting what we should do to keep warm, that we saw the sledges of our Esquimaux friends come dashing along down the valley towards us. We were anxious to return the hospitality they had shown us so we asked them into the house and stirred up our fire, threw some more wood on it, and put on a pot of lobscouse to regale them.

They could scarcely restrain their feelings of dismay when they saw this waste of wood, to them so precious a thing, and by signs they entreated us to desist; reminding us that they had cooked their meat in a very different way. However, as the pot began to boil, there was no necessity for putting more wood on.

They then tried to show us, by significant gestures, that they thought we should be frozen to death in our house when the cold increased. To do this, they shivered very much, then shut their eyes, and stretched out their limbs till they were rigid, and looking round at the walls, shook their heads, as much as to say, “This will never do.” Then they smiled, and explained that they could soon show us how to manage.

Having selected a level spot near our house, they beat the snow on it down till it was quite hard, and then marked out a circle about twelve feet in diameter. They then, from under a bank where the snow had drifted thickly and was very hard, cut out a number of slabs like large bricks, about two feet long and six inches thick. These they placed edgeways on the spot marked out, leaving a space to the south-west for the door. A second tier was laid on this, but the pieces were made to incline a little inwards. The top of this was squared off with a knife by one of them who stood in the middle, while the others from without supplied him with bricks.

When the wall had been raised to the height of five feet, it leaned so much that we thought it would certainly fall in; but still our friends worked on till they could no longer reach the top. The man within then cut a hole in the south-west side, where the door was intended to be, and through this the slabs were now passed. They worked on till the sides met in a well-constructed dome; and then one climbing up to the top, dropped into the centre the last block or keystone.

The rest of the party were all this time busily employed with their snow-shovels in throwing up the snow around the building, and in carefully filling any crevices which might have been left.

While we stood looking on with amazement at the rapidity and neatness with which the work was executed, the builder let himself out as a mole does out of his mole-hill. He cut away the door till he had formed a gothic arch, about three feet high, and two and a half wide at the bottom. From this door in the same way two passages were constructed about twelve feet long, the floor of them being considerably lower than the floor of the hut, so that one had to creep up through them into the hut.

We were wondering how they were to see through the thick snow, when from one of the sledges a large slab of fresh-water ice was produced; and the builder cutting a round hole in one side of the roof, it was let into it to form a window.

After the window was cut, the builder remained inside for a short time, and then invited us to enter. He had collected the snow on one side to form the beds for a family. Round the remaining portion seats were formed, and a place for holding the cooking-lamp.