Live In Snow Houses

Many adventurous prospectors have jeen making thelr way In the last year toward the Yukon River valley, in Alaska, and they have had to live very much after the fashlon of the natives. Carlbou and moose abound, though it's not much sport hunting them when the thermometer registers 50 degrees below zero. The natives construct snow huts in about the time that would be required to pitch a wall tent. They select a place where the snow is about four feet deep. A space 6 by 9 feet is marked out. Blocks two feet square are cut from the surface snow and set on edge around the excavation for sida walls. At one end three feet of space is dug down to the ground; in the balance about two feet of snow is left for a couch. The sides and ends are built up tight and the whole is roofed with broad slabs of crusted snow cut in proper dimenslons to form a flat gable roof, and loose snow is thrown over all to chink In. At the end, which is dug down to the ground, a hole is cut Just íarge enough to admit a man crawling on hls hands and knees. The hut is now finlshed and sleeping bags and provisions are packed inside. The arms and ammunition are generally left outside. After the outslde work is fiaished everybody crawls into the hut -uid the opening is stopped up from the fnside wlth a plug of snow that has been fitted carefully, and no one is expected to go out untll it is time to break camp. The comblned heat from the bodies of the inmates, together with the lamp they use, soon ralses the temperature, and a degree of comfort is obtalned, no matter how cold it may be on the ouiside. The Alaska Mining Record says that a similar degree of warmth is obtained by no other manner of camping in that región. Snow tents that are occupied for a month or more are more elabórate, and are usually built when the snow is six or eight feet deep, the roof can be made higher and the hut entered by a covered way and through an ante-room in which the dogs sleep and the sleds and other articles are stored.