New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1885-09-30
Good Hot Weather Reading.


Frederick Schwatka in New York Times.
seventy-one degrees below zero
means 100 deg. below freezing point.
1t was in the Attic regions, not fa1
from Backs Great Fish River, when
the author was conducting home.
ward sledge journey to Hudson's Bay
in the depth of an Artic winter-Nov
ember, December, January, February
and March-that he experienced it.
Severe weather-that is, intensely cold
had set in just before Christmas, in
1879, the thermometer sinking down
to IS deg. and 68 deg below zero, and
never getting above go deg. below, and
we were having a hard time with our
sleighing 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 be-
ing seen some ten or fifteen miles back
from it, | determined to leave it's bed
and strike straight for home in Hud.
sons Bay.
We had been gone three or four days,
when, as we assembled the higher levels,
the thermometer commenced lowering,
and on the Sd of January, 1880, at 8
o'clock in the afternoon, reached II
deg. below zero, the coolest we exper.
fenced on our sledge journey Of nearly
a year in length, and the coolest ever
encountered by white men travelling
out OF doors, for that day we moved
camp some ten or twelve miles to the
south-eastward. The day was not at all
dlsagreeable, | must say, until along
toward the early night, when a slight
zephyr, the merest kind Of motion OF
the wind that would hardly ruffle the
leaves on a tree, OF even suffice to cool
the face on q warm day, sprang up
from the southwark, and, slight and
insignificant as it was, it cut to the
bone every part OF the body that was
exposed, 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 wehad
gotten into camp and got to work
building our snow-houses and digging
through the thick ice of the lake
Tor fresh water, and so lazily did our
breath, that CONCEALED into miniature
clouds, float away to the northward,
like the little, i,ht cirrus clouds OF a
summer sky, that weknew we'll enough
how terribly cold it must be without
looking at the thermometer that stood
II deg. below zero, Fahrenheit.
1t is not SO much the intensity of the
cold, expressed in degrees on the Their
mometer, that determines the disa,
greeableness OF Arctic winter weather
as it is the force and relative direction
OF the wind. I have found it far
pleasanter with the thermometer at
so deg, so deg. or even 70 deg. below
zero, Fahrenheit, with little OF no wind
blowing at the time, than to face a
rather stiff breeze when the little tell
tale showed 20 deg. warmer tempera-
ture. Even AN Arctic acclimated white
man facing a good strong wind at go
deg. or rs deg. below zero is almost
sure to find the wind freeze the nose
and cheeks, and the thermometerd does
not have to sink over 4 deg. or 5 deg.
to induce the Esquimaux themselves to
keep within their snug snow houses I'M
der the same circumstances, unless
want or 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.