The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1889-03-28

numbers and had added faithful
natives to it, so at least few could
have escaped along the dreary coast
where we were living in plenty at the
corresponding time OF year when they
were lost.
When our summers task was done
of following the lonely line of death
and burying the bones, we prepared
for our winters sledge journey home
to Hudson's Bay, whence next summer
ship would take us to the United
States.
The first cold snap of winter-and in
the Arctic regions winter sets in earlier
than in our own country by two or
three months - started the reindeer,
now fat and in fine fur, to migrate
southwark where the climate would be
little milder; so we had to scurry
around pretty lively to kill enough of
them for clothing, bedding and meat
until we should overtake them farther
south again.
We were quite successful, and early
in November we started back, hoping
and expecting to reach home in a
month or two at the most-an expecta-
ton that was dragged out two or three
months, even longer than that. and
gave us sledge journey through the
whole of the winter, an undertaking
before unknown even among the Es-
kimo.
Our dogs were good and strong and
covered with fat when we started, and
every thing worked along happily
enough while we were passing from one
Eskimo village to the other. where we
could exchange trading material for
dog food.
The last village we left November
10. As our reindeer meat was fast dis
appearing-we had not seen one of
these animals since the seventh of Oc-
tober-we did not feed our dogs again
until the fourteenth of the month.
This day we left the head of d
deep inlet and thought that by
the time another four days had
passed we would be at Dangerous
Rapids at the mouth of Backs Great
Fish river, where natives catch fish
and where we could therefore replen-
ish our supplies for our dogs without
using more of our precious reindeer
meat Still we were travelling across
a wholly unknown country, and every
thing was purely conjecture.
The four days faded into five, then
six. On the seventh my dog-driver,
Toolooah, fed the dogs from the rein
deer meat. had felt as if l must have
them fed before, but fully compre-
hended that he knew the best and ]
must let him have his own way about
the poor beasts.
Then came another long stretch OF
six days, till November %, before the
dogs were again fed, and now only
lightly.
Then came the third stretch without
food-an interval of seven days, which
ended on the fifth day of December
when we reached the Rapids, and found
a huge cairn of fish put up by the
Eskimo. This we bought, and gave
our poor polar puppies most roya
feed. The thermometer had been a:
low as minus forty degrees. We haC
travelled nearly two hundred miles
and the intervals of feeding had been
for three times, about week apart
yet not a single dog of the nineteen il
| ell hoA Ir6 III =
each one had dragged over double hi'
own weight through it all. Such {
trip would have killed every dog o
any other breed but these from thi:
part of Eskimo land, while white mer
pulling such a sledge with sucl
load would have starved before they
had made one-third of the way. Little
enough do we know about winter
travel, in comparison with the northern
natives. In as cunning a way as one
could devise they cover the bottom o
their broad sledge runners with ice
which makes it SO slippery that a dog
can pull four or five times his OWE
weight on sledge on the best snow
without this ice he probably could no
pull one-quarter as much. One whit
has not seen this great aid to sledging
can not imagine what a help it is; AMI
when read of the many Arctic sledge
trips by those who know nothing of i
my admiration for their doing so vel
under such difficulties as many of then
have had, is fully equal to my pity tina
they did not know how to wipe half o
two-thirds their labors away 1t is al
intricate and delicate affair, known
only to perfection among the Eskimo
: We left the kind Eskimo on Back
river December II, having been JOINED
by my other two sledges, From nov
on, the thermometer sank to Coz
IS Q and once SO ., and the gentles
zephyrs cut like razors. We had sup
posed we would make twenty or thirt,
miles day on the level ice of the
river and be home by New Years. Blu
instead of being better sledging it wa
much worse than on the rolling land
and we seldom made over five or sll