Hey, I found a link for you guys to be able to read my favourite outdoor book...
http://www.archive.org/details/lifes...orth00comerichIf you click on all files you can access different formats.
Here is a cool story on him and his brother sleeping in the snow. This was on the North Shore of the Gulf of St.Lawrence about 120 years ago. Alot of excellent stories in this book. One story is about getting stuck out on the ice on the St.Lawrence River. Also useful bits like lighting a birch tree as a signal flare, and how its often easier to catch seagulls and crows with a fishing line than fish. The section on getting lost in the woods etc is very informative. Also the section on trapping, and the chapters on eating bear and stuff with the Montagnais natives.
Here goes. Just a teaser...
Sleeping in the Snow One winter I had my
permanent camp on the border of Lake She-
tagomau, the head waters of the east branch
of the Manicouagan River. About the middle
of February my brother and myself decided to
go on an exploring trip of about two days'
walking, further north, on the lookout for
suitable marten ground. As we were not out
for meat we arranged to go as light as possible,
so as to cover more ground. We each carried
one axe, a quart tin kettle, and sufficient grub for
four days, wrapping this last in our shelter tent,
a piece of cotton ten feet long, by six wide
which made our pack and which we carried turn
about. We made an early start, as we travelled
over six miles on the lake and then took to the
woods, and had a long day's tramp. About four
o'clock we halted to camp for the night. There
was the same old job of clearing the snow, cutting
wood and branches and setting up the shelter tent
in a half circle. When all this was done, my
brother went for water to a small lake nearby. I
got ready to light the fire, when to our discour-
agement we found we had no matches. I usually
carried these in my pockets in a small vial, well
corked, and thus absolutely waterproof. In some
way, probably while chopping or collecting the
wood, I had lost them. Neither of us smoked,
consequently we had no loose matches, although
we fumbled all through our pockets just the same.
Night had now set in and it was well nigh impos-
sible to travel back, besides which we were very
tired, so I proposed that we should have
something to eat and then try and get a little rest
by lying down in the snow. If we found it too
cold we were to get up and walk back the best way
we could to our camp, which we estimated to be
about twenty miles away. We ate some dried
smoked beaver and frozen galettes camp made
bread for our supper, and then set to work pre-
paring our bed. I tramped down a trough in the
snow six feet long by about three wide. On the
bottom of this we laid a lot of the fine branches
we had cut for our camp. Over this we laid half
of the shelter tent, then one of our coats, removing
our shoes and putting them also under us. Then
we both got into the trench, bringing the
other half of the cotton over us and piling on
snow, up to our waist, using our second coat as
an additional covering over our body and shoul-
ders. With a branch in one hand I then swept
over us as much snow as I could and covered our
heads with the cotton, shaking some of the snow
over. For a little while it was rather cold, but
it soon got more comfortable and we went asleep
and to our surprise only woke up at daylight.
On the inside surface the snow had melted and
glazed, retaining the heat, but we felt damp
and chilly on getting out, and had to hurry up
and walk to warm ourselves. We returned to
our camp, and felt no ill effects from our night in
the snow. After that night each of us carried
a vial of matches. I slept in the snow again
after that, but I was provided with a good hare
skin blanket and coton wrapper, and we followed
the same plan occasionally to save the time and
work of making a camp when after caribou or on
a long tramp.
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