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only for skin boats and waterproof sealskin boots. But there is another
sewing almost as difficult to acquire and almost as necessary - that of
the warm, soft and pliable skin clothes that keep out the winter cold.
It is possible to dress in silk, cotton or woolen clothing if one wants
to follow such methods as hare been used in the Antarctic by Scott and
Shackle ton. But no one will do that if he has the chance of Eskimo
clothing, for it is apparently not possible to be thoroughly comfortable
at all in the antarctic clothing and the suits actually used have weighed
about doubl.* The best sort of Eskimo suit, complete with outer and

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For a description of the troubles of polar explorers who did not use
Eskimo clothes, or who did not understand how clothes can be kept dry in
winter, see Nansen, "Farthest North," Vol. II. pp. 142, 145-6, and
Shackleton, "Heart of the Antarctic" Vol. I, p. 340. A summary of the
difficulties of explorers with their winter clothing and of the modern
methods for avoiding them is also found in "The Friendly Arctic-" see index
of this book.
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inner garments from top to toe, will weigh about ten pounds where a
corresponding antarctic outfit of wool, silk and Burberry goes to
twenty or more pounds.

It is impractical under ordinary circumstances to take Eskimos
on expeditions otherwise than in entire families. Almost any Eskimo man
might be willing to engage himself for a year’s job in a mining camp
or on a whaling ship, relying, perhaps somewhat reluctantly, upon
European or American clothes. But for a readence in an island like
Wrangell it would be almost impossible to engage an Eskimo man unless
he knew that there would be womenalong to do suitable sewing.

With these ideas clearly in mind the Wrangell party tried to
engage at Nome some Eskimo XEttismaKfc families, and did so actually.
But when the time came to sail there arrived at the boat landing only
the Eskimo woman Ada Blackjack, who had been expecting to go along as