Note 1 — Chapter II · FORT FUTURE.

These sleds, generally known as Eskimo sleds, are made of two runners some thirty feet long, four inches deep and two inches thick, and are mostly shod with whalebone, but in its absence mud is used. This latter is put on hot and allowed to freeze, then planed smooth and “iced” by quickly drawing a streaming-wet piece of white bearskin or blanket over it. This process of icing takes place every night. Whalebone does not require icing, so has this advantage over mud and is used altogether by the most Northern Eskimo. Wooden bars are fastened across these long runners at intervals of six inches, and a ground-lashing of clapmatch line, or rope, run fore and aft on either side. The load is lashed down to this. Very heavy loads can be hauled on this kind of sled; in fact, ten hundred pounds’ weight on an Eskimo sled is merely equivalent to four hundred on a flat sled (toboggan). The serious disadvantage of mud is felt in the spring, when the mud thaws out and drops off in chunks.