Storkersen's Camp, Version I
Peddie Point, Melville Island. "In midsummer sometime
coal was found in considerable aboundance in a talus in a river bed.... At first
several days were spent picking up loose coal, but later a vein four or five inches
thick was discovered in an accessible place, and the rest eight tons was obtained
here by the use of pick axes we carry for making roads through ice pressure ridges.
About three tons of this coal was packed to the winter camp, which is on the south
side of the same river half way up the valley slope a mile and a half inland and
some three miles down stream from the coal.... When the cold weather came on in
august a house was built. The main part is about 12 x14 ft. with a raised sleeping
platform 12 x 10 at one end and a sleeping alcove 8 x 6 at the door end. The roof
is of two thicknesses of muskox hides, about forty hides in all, the hair side
out on the inner cover, the hair side in on the outer cover with greased seams,
so that the roof is rain proof and practically cold proof." (Stefansson MSS
98, 4:34 "The Summer Work in Melville Island")
|
