They are so fond of this general resort that when nearly the whole village was encamped at Imêkpûñ in the spring of 1883, to be near the whaling ground, they extemporized a club house by arranging four timbers large enough for seats in a hollow square near the middle of the camp. The men take turns in catering for the club, each man’s wife furnishing and cooking the food for the assembled party when her husband’s turn comes. The club house, however, is not used as a sleeping place for the men of the village, as it is said to be in the territory south of Bering Strait,[N149] nor as a hotel for visitors, as in the Norton Sound region.[N150] Visitors are either entertained in some dwelling or build temporary snow huts for themselves. [Footnote N149: Petroff, Report, etc., p. 128.] [Footnote N150: Dall, Alaska, p. 16.] The kû´dyĭgi is not used in the winter, probably on account of the difficulty of warming it, except on the occasions of the dances, festivals, or conjuring ceremonies. Crevices in the walls are then covered with blocks of snow, a slab of transparent ice is fitted into the window, and the house is lighted and heated with lamps. Buildings of this sort and used for essentially the same purposes have been observed among nearly all known Eskimo, except the Greenlanders, who, however, still retain the tradition of such structures.[N151] Even the Siberian Eskimo, who have abandoned the iglu, still retained the kû´dyĭgi until a recent date at least, as Hooper saw at Oong-wy-sac a performance in a “large tent, apparently erected for and devoted to public purposes (possibly as a council room as well as a theater, for in place of the usual inner apartments only a species of bench of raised earth ran round it).”[N152] These buildings are numerous and particularly large and much used south of Bering Strait, where they are also used as steam bath houses.[N153] [Footnote N151: See Rink, Tales and Traditions, p. 8; also Geografisk Tidskrift, vol. 8, p. 141. Speaking of buildings of this sort, Dr. Rink says: “Men i Grønland kjendes de vel kun af Sagnet. Paa Øer Disko vil man have paavist Ruinen af en saadan Bygning, som besynderlig nok særlig sagdes at have været benyttet til Festligheder af erotisk Natur.” Boas, “The Central Eskimo,” passim; Lyon, Journal, p. 325 (Iglulik); Richardson, in Franklin’s 2d Exp., pp. 215-216 (Atkinson Island); Petitot, Monographie, etc., xxx; “_Kêchim_, ou maison des assemblées;” Beechey, Voyage, p. 268 (Point Hope); Dall, Alaska, p. 16 and elsewhere; Petroff, Rep. p. 128 and elsewhere.] [Footnote N152: Tents, etc., p. 136.] [Footnote N153: See references to Dall and Petroff, above.]