The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1884-01-17
SUN-BURN IN ARCTIC REGIONS.
One OF the sscOurges of Arctic Travel
IAN Old y1haier's Experience.

"The worst trouble that had in my
first voyage north was from sun-burn.
Yes, burn. / could stand the
cold when she was forty degrees below
zero; could stand frozen noses and
years; but bust my top-rails if | didn't
suffer the torments of hell the first time
1 got sunburnt in the Arctic regions.
You see it is this way We was laid up
a few DAYS before the close OF summer
making repairs, in about seventy-four
degrees north latitude, and right early
one morning party of us went ashore
to look around. 1t was pretty cold and
the consequence was We were bundled
up in half dozen thicknesses of UNDER
clothes, with fur hoods over our heads,
and looked like fieas in buffalo robe.
"Well, sir, along about noon time,
what with the heat of the sun, and the
hard exercise that we was taking in
getting over the snow and ice-hum-
mocks, was hot as tarnation, and just
slipped the hood Off my head and went
along for awhile with nothing on it.
"'Put on that hood, you fool hol-
Tered one of the men. DO you want to
get sunburnt?' "A few freckles won't
hurt me- says I. I never was much of
q beauty. But you're the fool to talk
about sun-burn i'll such country as
this.
Il thought that settled the whole
business: so l kept right along with
bare head, while the other boys, who
were old hands at travel in the north,
kept covered up. The side of my face
that was next the sun was hot as fire,
while the side that was III the shade was
froze pretty stiff, but as we kept lacking
around in going from place to place, L
showed first one side and then the
other to the sun, and the freezing and
the cooking was pretty evenly divided.
you take and stick your head clear
down to the chin in bucket of scalding
water, and keep it there for five min
utes, and you'll know what l felt like
when got back to the ship that night.
My face was swelled up 80 that I
couldn't see out of my eyes, and one of
the boys had to lead me around for
three days. My head under the hair
was so tender that l couldn't touch it
to piller, and l took my sleep like L
took my whisky, standing. The boys
used to come around me and laugh and
holler, because they said my head
looked like q hog fattened up for
Christmas; but it wasn't no joke for
me, and | couldn't understand the
laughing until l got we'll enough to SEQ
out of my eyes into a looking glass, and
then l laughed, too, at the picture.
You don't believe me, Ell? Don't
lie about it; l can see in your eyes that
you don't; but it's true all the same,
and any man who has been well up
north in summer will tell you the same.
The cap'n he told me the cause of it
was that the sun shines so straight up
and down there that his rays burn like
fire. l don't know nothing about that,
but do know that sunburn is the
pain1ullest danger in northern travel.
Freezing amt a patching to it.
Many and many time have l had my
nose and years froze without suffering.
The time l got these years froze off I
didn't tend to them in time, or they'd
s-been all right. In fact, was by my
self for twenty-four hours at the time
it happened, and l did not know they
were froze until some of the boys told
me when got back to the ship; but it
was too late to save them.