Music Welcome to snoozecast, the podcast designed to help you fall asleep. Find us at snoozecast.com and if you enjoy our show, please share us with a friend.

This episode is brought to you by Polar Libraries. Tonight, we'll read about igloos and other polar quarters. From the book Secrets of Polar Travel written by Robert E. Peary and published in 1917. a famed American Arctic explorer, led multiple expeditions to the far north, and claimed to be the first person to reach the geographic North Pole. His writing blends technical insight with firsthand accounts of survival in extreme cold, offering a glimpse into the ingenuity required to build shelter in some of the earth's harshest climates. Although igloos or snow shelters are often associated with all Inuit, they were traditionally used only by the people of Canada's central Arctic and a part of Greenland. Other inuit groups constructed more permanent dwellings from driftwood, whalebone, and hides. Using snow is insulation rather than structural material. Snow works as an insulator because of the tiny air pockets trapped within it. An important fact when outside temperatures plunge to negative 45 degrees Celsius, which would be negative 49 degrees Fahrenheit, while inside a well-constructed igloo, body heat alone can raise the temperature to a surprisingly livable 16 degrees Celsius or 61 degrees Fahrenheit.

Let's get cozy.

Close your eyes.

Relax your body into the softness of your bed.

Now take a few deep breaths. Breath. The matter of winter quarters is one of pronounced importance to polar travelers, ranking second only to the question of an abundance supply of food, warmth, dryness, and abundance of light are the great Dezitarata, a knowledge of Eskimo methods of housebuilding, combined with the little ingenuity. Enables these needs to be secured with few and simple materials. Headquarters for my expedition of 1891 to 1893 were established in McCormick Bay, where I was sure of securing an abundance of fresh meat for my party of seven. The site for our winter home was selected only after most careful consideration. It was essential that it be on land high enough to ensure dryness, that it be sheltered from strong winds, and yet get as much sunlight as possible. It should also be free from danger of snow or rock slides and from spring floods, and not too far from shore. A grassy knoll on the southern shore of the bay, about a hundred feet from the water's edge, was finally decided upon as meeting most fully our requirements. A brook on each side made a good water supply certain. A hundred feet back of the house were brown cliffs, which had the disadvantage of cutting off the sun in the early spring and late autumn, but they served as a protection against the winds, and we felt this was the best we could do. All material for the house was of course taken north with us, and on the way up was cut and fitted, ready to nail together and set up at once upon our arrival. Red cliff house, when finally completed, was a sort of house within a house. being an inner frame that was separated from an outer frame by an air space ranging from ten inches on the sides to something over three feet in the middle of the roof. A sheathing of closely joined boards and two layers of tarred paper on the outside of the outer framework made it airtight while the inner house was made of heavy boards and rendered airtight by a coating of heavy brown paper. interior was 21 feet long, 12 feet wide, and 8 feet high and was divided into two rooms. A wall was constructed all the way around the house, leaving a passageway of 4 feet between. For the lower portion of this wall, empty barrels, stones and turf were used, while wooden boxes containing canned supplies piled in regular courses on top of this foundation formed the upper portion of the wall. I had the supply boxes made the same width and depth, but of different lengths, especially for this purpose. A roof of canvas extending from the house to the wall made a closed-in corridor, which we used as a store-room. The boxes were stacked so that the covers could be opened from the inside, making their contents as easily accessible as if they were on pantry shelves. The corridor was quite large enough to serve as a workroom, and here we made our sludges and other equipment necessary for sledge journeys. When the snow came, a long snow entrance to the corridor was constructed, the roof was covered with a thick blanket of it. And the walls were banked, still further to protect us from the wind-tree blasts. For our stove a pit was dug in the ground, so that the firebox came below the level of the floor, the floor, thus ensuring the warmth of air even down to the floor level, and lessening the danger of fire. To carry this stove pipe out so that it would not come into contact with the woodwork, we ran it through a double window, the glass of which had been replaced with sheets of tin. Air shafts were suitably arranged for carrying off moisture and stale air. This done, heavy blankets of bright red, adding warmth and color to the interior were used to cover the walls and ceiling. Bunks were built along the wall, and with a few chairs and a table, a library, and our cooking utensils, our home was ready for occupancy. The construction of the Eskimos dwellings half excavated beneath, half built above the surface, would seam at first glance to demand nothing beyond a considerable outlay of manual labor in transporting and arranging the stones. Yet these children of the ice have met and solved this problem with the cantilever principle. And the roofs of these old stone houses are everyone supported with massive stone cantilevers. and unyielding as a masonry arch. In the plan and arrangement of his house, too, the Eskimo has met and solved each problem that confronted him. And though the entrance is never closed, yet no draft or current of air disturbs the quiet interior. The thick, non-conducting walls of stone and turf are perfect insulators from the savage cold, and the heat from every drop of the precious oil burned in the stone lamps is fully conserved. Many of these igloos have every appearance of being centuries old. Vertibray of the now extinct whale are almost invariably built into their walls. And frequently, such enormous stones are used in supporting the roofs. That it seems impossible they could have been handled without mechanical appliances. All the roof and bed platformed stones, which must be large, flat and thin, as well as many of those for the walls, had to be brought by the men on their backs from the mountains, sometimes a distance of several miles. The construction of the igloo falls very largely upon the women, and in an emergency, they even assist in bringing stones. These stone dwellings are occupied from the latter part of September till April or May, depending upon the season, locality, and movements of the occupants. By May they usually become very damp, and then the family but takes itself to its tupic or tent. Removing at its departure from the igloo, the windows and a portion of the roof, so that throughout the summer, the sun and wind may have free access to the interior. There is no ownership of these igloos beyond the period of actual occupancy. Any one of them is free to each and all, and it is the exception rather than the rule that a family lives in the same igloo, or in fact in the same place, two years in succession. The building of a new igloo is rather a rarity also, and is necessary only when, for some special reason, and unusually large number of tribes people are attracted to one place. Usually no more families locate in a place than the existing igloos will shelter. These igloos are for use only for a few weeks. The w sound eskimos do not, like the Baffin land tribes, use snow houses for their permanent winter habitations. A long, low, narrow snow tunnel gives access to the igloo and protects the interior from drafts or penetration by the furious spring storms. A still more temporary form is a small, rapidly constructed snow igloo used by traveling parties in winter and spring, and occupied only for a single night unless the travelers are held by storms. This is the kind of egglue invariably used by my parties on their sludging trips. The Eskimos can nearly always tell who built an egglue. Though they are all constructed on one general principle, there are always peculiarities of individual workmanship which are readily recognized by these experienced people. Who notice every minute trifle. The fundamental principle of all these houses is that warm air is lighter than cold and rises. The level of the bed and living platform in an Eskimo igloo is always higher than the highest part of the entrance opening. In the best of the permanent winter igloo, the entrance is through the floor. As a result of this construction, every bit of warm air is retained in the igloo and the long and whenever practicable, downward sloping and trans tunnel prevents even the most violent air waves of furious blizzards from penetrating the quiet interior. The vertical variations in temperature in the winter igloo of a successful hunter who has a good store of blubber to keep the stove lamps going are pronounced. On the bed platform, at the level of the lamps, the host and hostess and children are usually in their birthday suits, unless the lady, in deference to the presence of a guest, assumes a strip of seal skin half an inch wide. If one stands, bringing the head to the top of the igloo, it is like putting one's head into a furnace. Yet a drop of water spilled on the floor of the egg glue, a foot below the level of the bed platform, is instantly frozen into ice. On several subsequent expeditions, my parties wintered on board ship, and this introduced new elements. The first thing to be done by any well-managed polar expedition on reaching winter quarters is to land everything in the way of supplies and equipment and fuel, and to erect suitable shelter for the entire party ashore as a precaution against fire or other mishap to the ship. The ship should, in fact, be emptied completely. My first practical working out of this proposition was with the Windward at Cape Derville in the winter of 1898 to 1899. The boxes of supplies landed here were erected into a compact house, with a box tunnel entrance, fitted with a small stove, and banked in completely with gravel, which in winter of course, became covered with snow, giving the appearance of a snow drift. This house, in addition to serving as insurance for the party during 1898 and 1899, in case of the loss of the windward, lying unprotected in the ice offshore, was during the three following years a welcome haven and refuge for my party's sludging, from prayer harbor to Fort Conjure. At Cape Sheridan, the winter quarters for these last two expeditions, we built boxhouses ashore, using the boxes containing supplies just as we did in previous years and packing them in firmly with hay. The purpose of our supplies for this purpose in boxes of certain sizes was one of the many details which determined the success of the expedition. The heavy cases of bacon, flour, etc. were used as so many boxes

and blocks in the construction of several houses about 30 feet long and 15 feet wide.

For roofs, sails thrown over boat spars or beams were used and later were covered in solid snow. The Jason Shore for a quarter of a mile was lined with the remaining boxes of supplies, each item of provisions having a pile to itself. This packing box village was called Hubbardville. Had we lost the Roosevelt at Cape Sheridan, we should have spent the winter in the box houses which we constructed and in the spring should have made the dash for the pole just the same. We should have then walked the 350 miles to Cape Sabine, crossing the Smith Sound Ice and waiting for a ship there. The second new element introduced into my later expeditions by the presence of a ship was the preparation of the ship itself for winter quarters. A partial beginning at this was made on the Windward, where my own personal quarters were an eerie railroad caboose given to me by my friend, who was president of that railroad. This caboose I put on the deck of the windward between the main mast and four mast and bolted it down like any deckhouse. In the autumn at Cape Derville, when the temperatures began to go down seriously, I had my Eskimos in case and cover it in with a wall of snow blocks and build a beehive-shaped vestibule or storm entrance of snow blocks from the door. This arrangement, in its comfort, facility of ventilation, freedom from the moisture and condensation incident to the quarters of the others below decks and the old system of ship's quarters was so superior that I was convinced the only place for the quarters of a polar ship was on deck. In building the Roosevelt, I put the quarters for everyone, officers, crew, and eskimos on deck, and in the two expeditions of 1905 to 1906 and 1908 to 1909, in wintering at Cape Sheridan, I worked out fully what I believed to be the most comfortable and satisfactory method of ships winter quarters. As a result, the officers and crew of my last two expeditions had light and roomy accommodations on deck, a great improvement over the old method of housing a party below decks, as in all-fashioned ships and even in ships built comparatively recently for polar work. The journey north in the ship, being a summer coasting voyage, with no danger from high or heavy seas, and the deckhouse being above the main structure of the ship, I was able to put in large plate glass ports along the sides to light the interior. And for the same reason, I was able to put real windows, four in all, double and of special heavy glass, the forward and after end of the deckhouse, with generous pains of glass in the upper part of each of the four doors, two forward and two aft, which opened into it. This arrangement made the quarters immeasurably pleasanter and more sanitary. On the upward voyage we got full value of all the sunlight there was. Ventilation was perfect, and from my state-room I could at all times command the situation. And if I was needed on the bridge, it was only a step through the door to the deck, and to jump up the ladder to the bridge. The great value of this large window area was in the late autumn and early spring. When it gave us in each case about two weeks more of daylight in our quarters, and shortened by just so much the long period of continuous lamp light. Their arrangement was also invaluable for those left on board when the main spring sledge parties left for their work, and for the sledge parties themselves in the weeks of waiting after their return in May or June till the ship could break out of her winter quarters in July or August. My polar experience has made me a fanatic on the subject of light. little summer cottage on the bluff point of a rocky

eyelet off the main coast has so many windows that is known by the surrounding inhabitants as the glass house. Sun worship seems to me the most natural of of religions.

But back to the snow, Behind the snow armor protection against the siege of the Frost King, we pass the winter in complete comfort. With a minimum expenditure of fuel, with perfect ventilation, with very little of the moisture and condensation, which is usually the bugbear of Polar Ship's quarters, and with instant and easy access to the outside for work or in an emergency. The snow armor costs nothing. It is found on the spot. And therefore takes no room on the upward voyage. And when it has served its purpose, it is thrown overboard. Another experience was at Payer Harbor. When the remodeled windward went north in 1901, she had a comodious and well-built deckhouse forward that had been constructed for quarters for her officers. On my decision to remain north another year, remembering my previous experience, I decided to save my party the valuable time and labor incident by constructing winter quarters utilizing this deckhouse. Captain Sam Bartlett and his men lifted it from the deck, lowered it over the side, ran it over the heavy harbor ice on timber shoes. And with tackles and falls, hauled it up the rocks to the place that I had selected for it. Here, after the ship had left, we banked it in completely as high as the bottom of the port holes with loose, dry gravel, which is abundant at payer harbor, and when the snow came, covered it completely, roof and all with an armor of two-foot thick snow blocks, carefully laid and cemented together by throwing water on the joints. A double snowy glue, Eskimo's style, at the entrance, kept out completely the furious winds which howled incessantly past the cape and pear harbor. And we lived here through the winter of 1901 to 1902 in perfect comfort with a minimum expenditure of fuel. The third and perhaps most interesting experience was at Fort Conjure, the headquarters of the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition. Returning here in June 1900 from my long-sled journey around the northern end of Greenland, in which I proved the insularity of that island continent. I waited at Fort Conjure through the summer on the possibility that an auxiliary ship might come north and be able to reach me. When late in the season it became evident that no ship would arrive. I took up the matter of the winter quarters for my small party, consisting besides myself myself, of Hansen, the doctor, and several Eskimos. The utilization of the building known as Fort Concher was entirely out of the question. This great barn of a structure, 60 feet long, by 30 feet wide, was grotesque and its utter unfitness and unsuitableness for polar winter quarters. With its great size, its light construction, and its high posted rooms, 9 or 10 feet from floor to ceiling, it embodied everything that should not be found in winter quarters. I decided upon three small structures outside of the big house and made partly of material from it. For myself, partly to economize the lumber, partly as a practical experiment, and partly to furnish occupation and amusement for myself, as I still was somewhat incapacitated from taking part in the hunting trips over the rocks and frozen ground, as a result of an accident to my feet the year before, I decided to make for myself a winter den. As perhaps it might be called from an 8 by 12 atent, which I found among the things at conjure as a nucleus.

On top of these joists, I erected the tent, putting in a few intermediate rafters on each side of the rich pole to prevent the side of the tent from sagging. did a small door frame and door into one side of the tent.

And on the sides two window frames and windows taken from the big house then covered the tent completely roof and Gable ends with the straw-filled mattresses taken from the men's quarters of the big house. Later, when the snow came, a wall of snow blocks 18 inches in thickness was carefully laid, In closing the entire tent, each course, as it was laid, being sprinkled with water, brought up from the bay. The joints cemented in the same manner. And after all was done, get full after bucket full of water dashed over the structure until it was

essentially a single block of ice. Hello, narrow, covered snow tunnel entrance.

With storm door at the outer end gave access to the tent. In this structure I pass the polar winter at Fort Conjure in entire comfort using for fuel chips, old papers, bits of tarred paper and the like picked up during the summer about Fort Conjure. To give an idea of the complete insulation of this place from the external cold I found on returning from some

of the autumn hunting trips that I could warm the interior of my tent to a comfortable

temperature by the judicious burning of a yard of tar roofing paper in my sheet iron stove. Winter quarters should be as warm and comfortable as possible as a matter of improving the effectiveness of the personnel. And this they play a very important part.

Men who have passed the personnel. In this they play a very important part. Men who have passed the winter in comfort and ample warmth have more vitality and endurance, and will stand the strain and exposure of the spring-sledge journey better than men who have been uncomfortable and chilly through the winter. The Eskimos, through generations of life in the polar regions, have worked out from stern experience, the true practice, and all such life questions. And we find them keeping their winter habitations heated up to the 90s. And we find them gorging themselves with food when food is to be had. As a result, when the necessity arises, they are in condition and have a reserved vitality which enables them to endure bitter cold and to go for a long time on scant food. the animals, the muskogs, the reindeer, the hare, know the trick, and during the summer eat incessantly and travel little, and thus get themselves in condition for the bitter winter when it requires incessant travel to secure starvation rations. After the question of suitable quarters for a party comes the problem of keeping them in good spirits during the four months of darkness, the secret of which lies in keeping each member busy and in varying the monotony of the work as much as possible. For this purpose, Thus much of my material was taken north in the rough and the work of shaping it. Building sludges for our spring work, making harnesses for the dogs, our fur clothing and other equipment, as well as regular hunting trips kept time from hanging heavily on our hands. The younger members of the party invariably went out on hunting parties during the eight or ten days of moonlight each month, those who went into the field one moon,

staying on the ship the next.

The coming and going of these parties gave plenty to talk about, and to look forward to.