Snow baby

by Katherine Kirkpatrick

News of Marie Ahnighito Peary's birth on an icy bay in northern Greenland spread around the globe, shocking Victorian society. The daughter of prominent American parents had been born in a tarred lodge at the edge of the known world! Even the Inuit who visited the blond, blue-eyed baby were amazed. They called her "Snow Baby." While most girls Marie's age were studying sewing and other "womanly arts," she was wearing caribous skin pants, sliding down glacial cliffs, and making friends with the Inuit children.