g man.

[Sidenote: PERSONAL CLEANLINESS]

After all, however grand the physical scenery, the meteorological
phenomena, may be, the people of any country are the most interesting
thing in it, and we found these Esquimaux extraordinarily interesting.
Dirty they certainly are; it is almost impossible for dwellers in the
arctic regions to be clean in the winter, and the winter lasts so long
that the habit of winter becomes the habit of the year. White and native
alike accept a lower standard of personal cleanliness than is tolerated
outside. I remember asking Bishop Rowe, before I came to Alaska: "What
do you do about bathing when you travel in the winter?" To which he
replied laconically: "Do without." It is even so; travellers on the
Alaskan trails as well as natives belong to the "great unwashed." In the
very cold weather the procuring of water in any quantity is a very
difficult thing even for house dwellers. Every drop of it has to be
carried from a water-hole cut far out on the ice, up a steep grade, and
then quite a little distance back to the dwelling--for we do not build
directly upon these eroding banks. The water-hole is continually
freezing up and has to be continually hewed free of ice, and as the
streams dwindle with the progress of winter, new holes must be cut
farther and farther out. On the trail, where snow must usually be melted
for water, it is obvious that bathing is out of the question; even the
water for hands and face is sparingly doled by the cook, and two people
will sometimes use the same water rather than resort to the painful
though efficient expedient of washing with snow. If this be so despite
aluminum pots and a full kit of camp vessels, it is much more so with
the native, whose supply of pots and pans is very limited. I have seen a
white man melt snow in a frying-pan, wash hands and face in it, throw it
out, fry bacon and beans in it, then melt more snow and wash his cup and
plate in it. There is, however, this to be said anent the disuse of the
bath in this country, that in cold weather most men perspire very little
indeed, and the perspiration that is exuded passes through to the outer
garments and is immediately deposited upon them as frost; and there is
this further to be said about dirt in general, that one blessed property
of the cold is to kill all odours.

One grows tolerant of dirt in this country; there is no denying it, and
it is well that it is so; otherwise one would be in a c