The Opelousas courier., 1892-03-26
SEVERE ARCTIC WEATHER.
LIFE IN THE FAR NORTH IN THR
DEPTH OF WINTER.
Seventy-one Degrees Below Zero
-Curiosities of the Cold.

LII was III Ine ArcClc regions; not lar
from Burk's Great Fish River, when
conducting a homeward sledge journey
to Hudson's Bay, in the depth OF an
Arctic winter, tuat an intense cold set in
just before Christmas, the thermometer
sinking down to sixty-iive aud sixty
eight degrees below zero, and never get,
ting above sixty below, writes Frederick
Schwatka in the New York Sun. We
were having d 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 re-
lying for our daily supply of food were
not found near the river, but some being
seen some ten or fifteen miles back from
it, ! determined to leave the river and
strike straight across the country for
Hudson's Bay.
We had been gone only three or four
days, as we assembled the higher levels
the thermometer commenced lowering,
and on the Sd of January reached seventy
one degrees below zero, the coolest we
experienced in our sledge journey OF
nearly a year in length, and the coolest,
J. believe, ever encountered BIZ white
men travelling out of doors; for that day
we moved our camp fully twelve miles.
The day was not at all unpleasant either,
I must say, until along toward night,
when a slight breeze sprang up. 1t was
the merest kind of a zephyr, and would
hardly have stirred the leaves on a tree
at home, but, slight as it was, it cut to
the bone every part of the body ex-
posed to it: This, fortunately; was only
the face from the eyebrows to the chin.
We turned our backs to it ds much as
possible, and especially after we had
reached camp and were at work making
our snow houses and digging through
the thick ice for water.
After all. it is not so much the intensity
of the cold as expressed in degrees on
the thermometer that determines the I'm.
pleasantness of an Arctic winter as is the
force and direction of wind, for | have
found 1t far pleasanter with the thermo-
meter at even seventy degrees blow zero,
with little or no wind blowing, than to
face a rather stiff breeze when the little
indicator showed even fifty degrees
warmer temperature. Even a white man
acclimated to Arctic weather and facing
d strong wind at twenty or thirty degrees
below zero, is almost sure to freeze tue
nose and cheeks, and the thermometer
does not have to go many degrees lower
to induce the Eskimos themselves to keep
within their snug snow houses under the
same circumstances unless absolute neel
of food forces them outside: It is n
of the consoling things about Arctic
weather that the intensely low temper:
attHes ale almost always accompanied by
Gains, or if there is a breeze it is a very
light one.
With the exception of a very few quiet
days during the warmest summer weather
of the polar summer these clear, quiet,
cold ones of the Arctic winter are about
the only times when the wind Is not
blowing with great yigor from some
point Of the compass. OF course there
were a few exceptions to this general
rule Of quiet weather with extreme cold,
and when they had to be endured they
were simply terrible. Early one morning
the thermometer showed us it was sixty
eight below zero, but as it was calm
we paid no attention to it but harnessed
our dogs and loaded our sledges for the
days journey, which was to be an ex-
ceedingly short one to a place where the
Eskimos thought they could get food for
ourselves and dogs. We were just ready
for the start when a sharp wind sprang
up, and it felt like a sc IRE of razors cut
ting the face. Had the wind arisen a
little sooner we would not have thought
of starting, hut as we were all ready and
the distance short we concluded to %
ahead rather than unload and go bael
into the old camp. We kept the dogs
at a good round trot aud ran alongside
of the sledges the whole distance; aud
when we reached the snowhouse of some
Rimrepetro Eskimo it was as welcome q
refuge as If it had been a first class
hotel.
When we reached the end of our jour.
ney | again looked at the thermometer
and found that it indicated ffty-fve de-
grees below sero-that is, it had grow
thirteen degrees warmer during the time
we were out, although it seemed to Us il
must be at least thirty degrees colder.
told the Eskimos who had been with u
that it was much colder, as shown by the
instrument, before we started than Il
was when the wind was at its highest,
but from their incredalous glances a,
each other they wondered how we could
be duped by such ideas directly against
our common sense and personal OBJ
seryation. They might believe u state
ments that the world was round ant
turned every day, without the polal
bears sliding off the slippery iceberg
when it was upside down, simply because
the white man had told them so, bu
nothing would persuade them that whel
they felt perfectly comfortable and warn
loading the sledge it was colder thai
when their arms and legs were frozel
and their noses s'nipped' by the frost
I tried to explain to them the effect 0
the wind, but they said they had know.
the wind to blow them off their feet i
summer and not freeze them a particle
They said that they knew it scenes
colder when the wind blew, but that wa
because it actually was colder, and her
they stood firm in the belief that we wer
1