into a hall, three bedrooms and a kitchen. The
walls and roof were plastered with clay, the floors laid with planks
rudely squared with the hatchet, and the windows closed with parchment of
deer-skin. The clay which, from the coldness of the weather, required to
be tempered before the fire with hot water, froze as it was daubed on and
afterwards cracked in such a manner as to admit the wind from every
quarter yet, compared with the tents, our new habitation appeared
comfortable and, having filled our capacious clay-built chimney with
fagots, we spent a cheerful evening before the invigorating blaze. The
change was peculiarly beneficial to Dr. Richardson who, having in one of
his excursions incautiously laid down on the frozen side of a hill when
heated with walking, had caught a severe inflammatory sore throat which
became daily worse whilst we remained in the tents but began to mend soon
after he was enabled to confine himself to the more equable warmth of the
house. We took up our abode at first on the floor but our working party,
who had shown such skill as house carpenters, soon proved themselves to
be, with the same tools (the hatchet and crooked knife) excellent
cabinetmakers and daily added a table, chair, or bedstead to the comforts
of our establishment. The crooked knife generally made of an old file,
bent and tempered by heat, serves an Indian or Canadian voyager for
plane, chisel, and auger. With it the snowshoe and canoe-timbers are
fashioned, the deals of their sledges reduced to the requisite thinness
and polish, and their wooden bowls and spoons hollowed out. Indeed though
not quite so requisite for existence as the hatchet yet without its aid
there would be little comfort in these wilds.

On the 7th we were gratified by a sight of the sun after it had been
obscured for twelve days. On this and several following days the meridian
sun melted the light covering of snow or hoarfrost on the lichens which
clothe the barren grounds, and rendered them so tender as to attract
great herds of reindeer to our neighbourhood. On the morning of the 10th
I estimated the numbers I saw during a short walk at upwards of two
thousand. They form into herds of different sizes from ten to a hundred
according as their fears or accident induce them to unite or separate.

The females being at this time more lean and active usually lead the van.
The haunches of the males are now covered to the depth of two inches or
more with fat