“When morning dawned, the captain and his men crawled out of the crushed snow hut, and, with hard work, made a new cave in the snow drift, burying the sleighs in the old one. The dogs were starving, and, to appease their appetites, were purloining bacon from the sled's stores; but Providence, for once, was kind to them, and a large, fat seal of several hundred pounds weight was shot that day on the edge of the ice cake upon which they were camped, and this gave them food and fuel. Dogs and natives were then well fed on the fresh seal meat and blubber, their natural and favorite viands. From tin dishes upon the sleds, the natives made little stoves, or lamps, using drilling for wicks, seal oil for fuel, and their coffee was made. Among the stores on the sleds were canned goods, beans, sausages, flour and other things, and on these the captain subsisted.”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
1 pound of fresh pork. 1/2 pint of stale bread. 1/4 teaspoonful of pepper. 1/2 tablespoonful of salt. 1/2 teaspoonful of powdered sage. 1/2 teaspoonful of powdered thyme. Have the meat one fourth fat and three fourths lean, and chopped fine. Soak the bread in cold water until it is soft, then press out all the water. Mix the seasonings and the bread with the meat. When all the ingredients are thoroughly combined, shape into small flat cakes, and fry until brown on both sides. It will take twenty minutes to cook the cakes thoroughly.
Sources: The passage is from May Kellogg Sullivan, A Woman who went to Alaska, free to read in full at Project Gutenberg. The recipe is from Parloa, Miss Parloa's Young Housekeeper of 1893, also free in full. Both are in the public domain in the United States. The binding above is ours — slate cloth, boar stamp.