word of the day: dunnage

word of the day: dunnage

context: 

“Our canoe, old now with the weight of her journey, lay with her scrofulous sides on the shore. Beside her was the meager pile of supplies which must see us out of the land. It was raining. A fine penetrating haze as cold and dismal as the gray sweat on the face of a corpse hung over us.

Ohoto and Ootek came to help us stow our spare dunnage against the rough splintered ribs of the canoe.”

Farley Mowat was one of my mother’s favorite writers. But then Mowat often wrote about one of my mother’s favorite topics — the people and animals of the arctic. He writes well. I read Never Cry Wolf when I was a teen and enjoyed it. Good adventure story. 

In the excerpt above Mowat has just gotten back from a trip through territory even his Eskimo guide didn’t know. It was his longest expedition on this visit to the arctic, and it was sometimes harrowing. But now it is time for Mowat to return south, to civilization, to his non-arctic life. 

definition (dictionary.com): baggage or personal effects.

source:

The People of the Deer

by Farley Mowat

1952. Atlantic-Little, Brown, Boston MA