One day, the
19th, we lay over to follow up some musk-ox tracks we had seen the day
previous. The weather was fine, notwithstanding a pretty strong wind
and a temperature of -65 degrees.
[Illustration: THE MARCH IN EXTREME COLD WEATHER.]
We followed the tracks about twenty-five miles, and only desisted when
we found that wolves were ahead of us and had already frightened the
game away. The country is filled with reindeer, and on every hill-side
their breath can be seen rising like clouds of steam. A herd that was
frightened by the dogs, which were following the musk-ox tracks,
scampered off in every direction, and it looked as if a lot of
locomotives had been let loose over the country, the smoke coming from
their lungs in great puffs as they ran, and streaming along behind
them. When the sledges are moving during a clear cold day, the position
of any one of them is known to the team, though they may be widely
separated. Sometimes, for the advantage of hunting to be obtained
thereby, our igloos have been separated by a day's march of about ten
miles, and at that distance the condensed breath of the dogs and people
could be distinctly seen and the position of the igloos located.
January proved the coldest month of our experience, with a mean
thermometer of -53.2 degrees, lowest -71 degrees, and the highest -23
degrees Fahrenheit.
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