stefansson-wrangel-09-32-063v

328 THE ADVENTURE OF WRANGEL ISLAND

the boys. Soon after we arrived I started to sew. We brought
some reindeer skin coats and all I had to do was to fasten the hoods
on to them, for it was very cold and the boys needed them to go
about in.

They used to haul lots of wood to get wood piles for the winter.
They made the frame for the snowhouse for winter and about the
last part of October they put the snow blocks in. We were living
in a tent at first and it was rather cold.

When spring came in 1922 we saw some geese and ducks; then
we had some good meat. That spring the boys got over thirty
seals and over ten polar bears. Not many of the bear skins could be
used, for the weather was so damp and we had no way to dry them,
so only one or two were saved.

The summer 1922 Mr. Knight took a trip to the east of our
camp, about sixty miles. On that trip he said he crossed a river
called Skeleton River, which he had to swim across. He said it
was quite a large river. After he came back the other three boys
left to take the same trip. After his trip Mr. Knight was never
well, complained of a sore back and said he felt weak. When
Knight took the trip he took a dog along to carry his small things.
While the other boys were away Mr. Knight killed a big polar
bear, but we didn’t touch the meat, for we didn’t care for it because
we had ducks and geese and brant. After the boys came home,
Maurer said he was going to fry some of the bear meat. I never
cared for it before, because it tasted strong, but in that summer of
1922 the bear meat tasted fine—it tasted just like beefsteak to me,
for we had had no meat for some time. Galle fried some of the
polar bear blubber and got one barrel, one coal oil tin and one
twenty-five-pound lard tin full. This oil is very good.

Later on they killed another polar bear, and oh! he was so fat.
Then they saw some walrus out in the broken ice. They went out
after them and got two of them. They had a great deal of trouble
getting the meat to shore. They couldn’t get the boat up to where
the meat was, so they took a sled and put the meat on it, and when
they were crossing two ice cakes the sled got between the ice cakes
and tipped over. They spilled all of the meat in the water, but they
saved some of it, but not all.

We were expecting a boat every day that summer (1922) because