the tent is to be suspended by the
ridge-rope, and the snow must all be scraped away by the snow-shoes, or,
if it be too deep, beaten down. Then while one man unlashes and unpacks
the sleds, another cuts green spruce and lays it all over the tent
space, thicker and finer where the bed is to be. Then up goes the tent,
its corner ropes and its side strings made fast to boughs, if there be
such, or to stakes, or to logs laid parallel to the sides. Then the
stovepipe is jointed and the stove set up on the edge of green billets
properly shaped. Meanwhile the axe-man, the green boughs cut, has been
felling and splitting a dry tree for stove wood, and the whole
proceedings are rushed and hastened towards getting a fire in that
stove. Sometimes it is a question whether we shall get a fire before we
freeze our fingers or freeze our fingers before we get a fire. The fire
once going, we are safe, for however much more work there is in the
open, and there is always a good deal more, one can go to the tent to
get warm. Enough stove wood must be cut, not only for night and morning,
but for cooking the dog feed. The dog pot, filled with snow, into which
the fish are cut up, is put upon the outdoor fire as soon as man-supper
begins cooking in the tent. When it boils, the rice and tallow must be
added, and when the rice has boiled twenty minutes the whole is set
aside to cool. Meanwhile the two aluminum pots full of snow, replenished
from time to time as it melts, are put upon the stove in the tent as the
necessary preliminary to cooking. Sometimes ice, and more rarely water,
may be had, and then supper is hastened. If we are camped on the river
bank sometimes a steel-pointed rifle-bullet fired straight down into the
ice will penetrate to the water below and allow a little jet to bubble
up. Melting snow is a tedious business at best; but, since three times
out of four when camping it must be done, the aluminum pots are a
treasure. There is still work for every one as well as the cook. Snow
must be banked all round the tent to keep out the wind. Little heaps of
spruce boughs must be cut for the dogs' beds; it is all we can do for
them whatever the weather, and they appreciate it highly. It may be that
dog moccasins must be taken off and strung around the stove to dry, and
before supper is ready the inside ridge-rope of the tent is heavy with
all sorts of drying man-wear: socks, moccasins, scarfs, toques,
mittens. One of the earliest habits