stefansson-wrangel-09-29-004

160

ready for winter.

"September 20. Busy digging out the side of a cut bank for
space to pitch our winter quarters. We can use one side of the bank for a side
of the house and the roof will be sod. The two ends will be built of snow blocks.
We will pitch the 10 x 12 and the 8 x 10 tents end to end (inside the house)
and will use the small tent for a kitchen and the large tent for living quarters.
... There is no snow or ice and the prospect for seals looks rather gloomy
until the ice does come. There are few seals about but they stay a long
distance from shore."

Like many other entries in Knight's diary, the above description
of the proposed winter quarters is lucid and complete to those who know the style
of dwelling he had in mind, but meaningless to others. Evidently Knight and
Mauer in planning the camp were drawing on their experience in norhtern Alaska
and in northwestern arctic Canada. In writing his newspaper story from this
diary, ^Mr. Noice implied his surprise that so unsuitable a dwelling should have been
employed, giving this as one of the instances of what he considered mismanage-
ment. That ^he Noise makes this criticism in perfectly good faith is evident not
only from what he says but also from a knowledge of the geographic limitations
of the experiences upon which he based the criticism. ^He Noice has been a member
of my expedition for two years in a country where driftwood is absent and we had
never used a dwelling of the kind here indicated by Knight. After leaving my
expedition ^Mr. Noice had spent four years in Coronation Gulf among Eskimos to whom
this type of dwelling is unknown. But unlike ^Mr. Noice, Maurer had spent a year
at Herschel Island and Knight had spent a year on the north coast of Alaska.
habit of using the sort of dwelling which Knight indicates and which we shall now
describe

The first step is the erection of two uprights upon which is