The Democratic advocate., 1885-07-18
sEvENTY-oNE BELOW ZERO.
Lieutenant Schwatka Tells Some
thing About Cold Weather.
LIFE IN THE ARCTIC REGIoNs-A sLEDGE JOUR
NEY WITH THE MERCURY SIXTY EIGHT
DEGREES BELOW ZERO.
Frederick Sch,catko in N. Z. Times.

Frederick Schacatta in N. Y. Times
There are few places in the United
States proper (the word ''proper' being
put in to exclude our colony of Alaska,
almost third of which lies in the Arctic
regions;) where the winter weather is in
tensely cold, and where even the summer
is so cool that both seem like the polar
regions, but these few places are so far in
the West, among the high mountains, and
so thinly populated that feel quite sure
that the mere mention of seyenty-one de-
grees belew zero-or 1899 below the freez-
ing point-will make the chills run over
my readers, and if it be warm day when
they peruse it they will be accordingly
thankful, and, [ hope, will not cast it aside
with mere glance at the heading, even if
it be not
The author was in heavy storm, lasting
some two or three hours, on July s.. 1876,
while elk hunting in the high spurs of the
Big Horn Mountains of Montana, and
when returning to camp learned that an
other hunting party had crossed their horses
on the ice of lake on the 4th of July at
still higher level, the ice not having
melted from the winters deep freezing.
The 18th of August the same year ice
formed on the water in our camp kettles
and buckets, and, in short, in that portion
of the country it is cold enough to give
person who may live there long chance
to see a snowstorm every month in the year
AS the author has-but it is not of these
districts we will write in describing 10
below zero.
1t was in the Arctic regions, not far
from Backs Great Fish River, when the
author was conducting homeward sledge
Journey to Hudson's Bay in the depth of
an Arctic winter-November, December,
January, February and March. Severe
weather-that is, intensely cold-had set
in Just before Christmas in 1879, the ther-
mometer sinking down to 650 and $50 be-
low zero, and never getting above co. be-
low, and we were having very hard time
with our sledging along the river, our
camps at night almost in sight of those we
had left in the morning, so close were they
together and so slowly did we labor along
Reindeer, on which we were relying for
our daily supply of food, were not found
near the river and being seen some 10 or
15 miles back from it, | determined to
leave its bed and strike straight for home
in Hudson's Bay,
We had been gone three or four days,
and as we ascended the higher levels the
thermometer commenced lowering, and on
the Sd of January, 1880, at 4 o'clock in
the afternoon, reached 10 below zero, the
coldest we experienced on our sledge jour
ney of nearly year in length, and the
coolest ever encountered by white men
travelling out Of DOORS for that day we
moved camp some 10 or II miles to the
southeastward. The day was not at all
disagreeable, / must say, until long toward
the early night, when slight zephyr, tho
merest kind of motion of the wind that
would hardly rufle the leaves on tree, or
even sufficient to cool the face on a warm
day, sprang up from the southwark, and,
slight and insignificant as it was, cut to the
bone every part of the body that was ex-
posed, and which fortunately was only the
face from the eyebrows to the chin and
about half of the cheeks. We turned our
backs toward it as much as possible, and
especially after we had gotten into camp
and got to work building our snow houses
and digging through the thick ice of the
lake for fresh water, and so lazily did our
breath that CONCEALED into miniature
clouds float away to the northward, like
the little light cirrus clouds of summer
sky, that we knew well enough how terribly
cold it must be without looking at the
thermometer, that stood at TO below zero,
Fahrenheit.
1t is not so much the intensity of the
cold, expressed in degrees on the thermom-
eter, that determines the disagreeableness
of artic Winter weather as it is the force and
relative direction of the wind. / have
found it far pleasanter with the thermome
ter at 500, 600, or even 700 below zero,
Fahrenheit, with little or no wind blowing
at the time, than to face a rather stiff
breeze when the little tell-tale showed 500
warmer temperature. Even an artic ac-
climated white man facing good strong
wind at 20o or 25o below zero is almost
sure to freeze the nose and cheeks, and the
thermometer does not have to sink over II
or 80 to induce the Esquimaus themselves
to keep within their snug snow houses un-
der the same circumstances, unless want OF
famine demands their presence in the storm.
With plenty in the larder for all the mouths,
brute and human, none of them venture
out in such weather.
1t is very consoling to add, however, that
the intensely cold temperatures of the arc
tic are nearly always accompanied by calms,