Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1885-10-02

UOVuU lASAOo 4OAS Wy ga 81
wide. The most common errors re-
garding the Esquimau snow-house are.
that these big blocks are laid flat, when
they are really on their longer edge,
and that they form one curse above
another, like we build a brick building,
when, in fact. there is but one course,
spirally twisting around from bottom
to top. While the blocks are but six
to eight inches thick, the lgloo is often
made four to five or even eight to ten
times as thick during very cold wealth
er, by a banking of loose snow thrown
over it.
OF course the temperature a not
get above freezing in these homes of
hard snow, or the structure will COM
mence melting and eventually tumble
in; but it must be remembered that q
person can soon get used to a temper
allure just a few degrees below freez-
ing, and ever be quite comfortable. 1
must say that after a person has
gotten thoroughly acclimated to the
outdoor winter life of the Arctic, a
temperature of 20 deg. to 80 deg.
Fahrenheit is every bit as comfortable
as one of 20 deg. to 80 deg. to a
person coming into the house from q
temperature well below freezing. I
distinctly remember one curious CT
feet on the white men of my party
during the cold OF the first incoming
winter. Every one has probably felt
the loss of managing power in the
fingers when numbed with cold, an
inability to write or button or I'M
button a coat or other garment, or
anything requiring considerable ma
nipulation and play of the fingers, and
we, of course. were no exceptions to
the rule at first. Being constantly in
this temperature, however. and al
most as constantly exercising our
fingers under these disadvantageous
circumstance, | wa greatly surprised
to see how rapidly these functions of
the fingers were restored, until by
time the winter was over they were
actually as perfect as ever in any
temperature, however cold, and this.
too. despite the fact that there still
remained, as before, the disagreeable
sensation of cold in them at times. 1t
seemed as if the motor and sensory
nerves could be made absolute
ly independent of each other; and this
OOLACA4Us WLllCA il1OWCO Lax ~ UlllCJu d
needle and sew below freezing, to use a
seNtant for observations at minus forty
deg. Fahrenheit, or clean and insert
cartridges in a magazine gun at even
twenty degrees lower with ungloved
hands. l believe l still, to a certain ex-
tent, retain, although all others accru-
ing from Arctic standardization have
disappeared in my five years away from
that zone.
If a comfortable house made of ice
or snow seems singular during intense
cold, how absurd an enjoyable bed
made of the same material must ap-
pear; and yet their bedsteads are made
of snow, the mattresses of many layers
OF musk OK and Polar bear robes and
undressed reindeer skins, while the
sheets are dressed reindeer robes and
the owe of the same material, their
pillows being their reindeer clothing
rolled in a bundle at the head of the
snow bed. Here, stark naked, with
only n reindeer skin over them, they
will sleep as soundly as a farmer in
more favored chimes after a hard days
work, and that with the temperature
out of doors SO low that every breath
ing thing is enveloped in a cloud of it's
w making.
The amount of cold these northern
nomads can endure, however, borders
on the phenomenal. I have seen the
little babies. two and three years old,
perfectly naked, for hours at a time, on
the reindeer robes of the bed in the
agloo, the temperature, as l have said,
being constantly below freezing; and
in the fall I have seen them naked,
playing and splashing in a pond of
water, long needles Of ice forming on
the quiet place. 1 once saw an Esqui-
mau baby boy taken from its mothers
hood, and naked, made to stand on the
snow until she found its reindeer skin
clothing from the sledge, afairly strong
wind, sufficient to drift the loose snow
along with it, blowing at the time, the
thermometer minus thirty-eight de-
grees, the only protection it had being
behind "a sledge loaded about three
feet high, around and over which the
wind poured. Its exposure thus was a
good minute, and to appreciate this
one must take a watch in his hand, and
see that length of time drag by, a time
that a not unconscientious but sensa-
tional writer might readily jot down as
five or ten minutes. And / have known
a naked man, surprised asleep in his
ayloo by a polar bear, hastily grasp a
gun and pursue his enemy two Or three
hundred yards in the snow, the ther-
mometer fifteen to twenty below zero,
and Stay him. These Esquimaux rub
slushy snow, dipped in water, on the
bottom Of the runner of their ..sledges,
with the open palms of the hands until
it freezes into solid ice, the thermome-
ter being from zero to seventy below.
when Ihave known it to be done. I
have seen an Esquimau throw himself
on the snow and rest comfortably for
half an hour. the thermometer seventy
one degrees below zero. OF one hun
dred and three degrees below freezing;
and probably doing some light work
with ungloved hands. The Kinne-
petoo Esquimaux, who seldom build
even the small fires of the native stone
lamp in their igloos during the very
coolest weather of winter, are probably
the hardest CT all these boreal tribes
in w%ithstanding low temperatures,
and st around in their cold. cherries
snow-houses with only their un.
dergarmcnts on (the Esquimau his.
two suits of reindeer skins. the outel
with the hair turned outward, and the