ows very fond of them.
Foregathering with them again is distinctly something to look forward to
upon the return to a mission, and to see them come running, to have them
press around, thrusting their little hands into one's own or hanging to
one's coat, is a delight that compensates for much disappointment with
the grown ups. In the midst of such a crowd of healthy, vivacious
youngsters, clear-eyed, clean-limbed, and eager, one positively refuses
to be hopeless about the race.

CHAPTER XII

PHOTOGRAPHY IN THE ARCTIC

THERE is no country in which an anastigmatic lens is of more use to the
photographer than Alaska, and every camera with which it is hoped to
take winter scenes should have this equipment. During two or three
months in the year it makes the difference in practice between getting
photographs and getting none. In theory one may always set up a tripod
and increase length of exposure as light diminishes. But the most
interesting scenes, the most attractive effects often present themselves
under the severest conditions of weather, and he must be an enthusiast,
indeed, who will get his tripod from the sled, pull out its telescoped
tubes, set it up and adjust it for a picture with the thermometer at 40 deg.
or 50 deg. below zero; and when he is done he is very likely to be a frozen
enthusiast.

With an anastigmatic lens working at, say f. 6-3, and with a "speed"
film (glass plates are utterly out of the question on the trail), it is
possible to make a snap-shot at one twenty-fifth of a second on a clear
day, around noon, even in the dead of winter, in any part of Alaska that
the writer has travelled in. There are those who write that they can
always hold a camera still enough to get a sharp negative at even one
tenth of a second. Probably the personal equation counts largely in
such a matter, and a man of very decided phlegmatic temperament may have
advantage over his more sanguine and nervous brother. The thing may be
done; the writer has done it himself; but the point is it cannot be
depended on; at this speed three out of four of his exposures will be
blurred, whereas at one twenty-fifth of a second a sharp, clear negative
may always be secured.

It may be admitted at once that at extremely low temperatures the
working of any shutter becomes doubtful, and most of them go out of any
reliable action altogether. After trying and failing completely with
three or four of the more expensive makes of shutt