Despite being on a frozen sheet of water, water for consumption was a commodity that required significant amount of labor. The picture below shows an ice mining pit, where the ice-miner would chip out crystals using pick axes. Only the crystals that would give him/her the best value for money were collected in a trough and taken to the market for sale and consumption. If the market is good, the ice miner might be able to make his ends meet, and get a nice shower. Otherwise it is back to the mines, where he/she must try again and again and again...
Many a times, the exhausted miner has to give up any hope of finding the elusive crystal and settle in the hope that tomorrow would be a better day, and the bath was a possibility.
By the way, I was just trying out the macabre tone of writing. All you kids out there, it is not that bad. Ice crystals are always available with a few chips into the ice mine and fresh water was plentiful while we were at the camp. The sign on the camp was interesting and later it struck me as to why i had not seen a single polar bear. The sign explicitly disallowed polar bears to come anywhere near the camp. And all the while i thought it was my 4 hour shot gun training....
Many a times, the exhausted miner has to give up any hope of finding the elusive crystal and settle in the hope that tomorrow would be a better day, and the bath was a possibility.
By the way, I was just trying out the macabre tone of writing. All you kids out there, it is not that bad. Ice crystals are always available with a few chips into the ice mine and fresh water was plentiful while we were at the camp. The sign on the camp was interesting and later it struck me as to why i had not seen a single polar bear. The sign explicitly disallowed polar bears to come anywhere near the camp. And all the while i thought it was my 4 hour shot gun training....
1 comment:
Sounds rather terrible and depressing... is this how they make ends meet... very distressing
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