A man who could not live without silk stockings would not be likely to attempt the North Pole.

As we had altogether, including the Eskimos, sixty-nine persons on board the ship--men, women, and children--it will be seen that there was considerable sewing to be done.

Old garments had to be overhauled and mended, and new ones made.
The worst of the ice fighting did not begin immediately, and the new members of the expedition, MacMillan, Borup, and Dr.Goodsell, were at first much interested in watching the Eskimo women at their sewing.

They sit on anything that is convenient, a chair, a platform, or the floor.
In their own quarters they remove their footgear, put up one foot, and hold one end of the fabric between their toes, sewing a seam over and over from them, instead of toward them, as our women do.

The foot of an Eskimo woman is a sort of third hand, and the work is gripped between the great toe and the second toe.
The Eskimo women have great confidence in their own skill at garment-making, and they take suggestions from the inexperienced white men with a good-natured and superior tolerance.