Our sledge journey stands conspicuous as the
only one ever made through the entire course of an Arctic winter, and
one regarded by the natives as exceptionally cold, as the amount of
suffering encountered by those remaining at Depot Island attested, and
further confirmed, as we afterward learned, by the experience of those
who wintered at Wager River, where many deaths occurred, attributable
to the unusual severity of the season. The party successfully withstood
the lowest temperature ever experienced by white men in the field,
recording one observation of -71 degrees Fahrenheit, sixteen days whose
average was 100 degrees below the freezing-point, and twenty-seven
which registered below -60 degrees Fahrenheit, during most of which the
party travelled. In fact, the expedition never took cold into
consideration, or halted a single day on that account.
During the entire journey its reliance for food, both for man and
beast, may be said to have been solely upon the resources of the
country, as the expedition started with less than one month's rations,
and it is the first in which the white men of an expedition voluntarily
lived exclusively upon the same fare as its Esquimau assistants, thus
showing that white men can safely adapt themselves to the climate and
life of the Esquimaux, and prosecute their journeys in any season or
under such circumstances as would the natives of the country
themselves.
Pages:
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242