You gain a shivering appreciation for the extraordinary skills Alaskan natives developed to survive their unforgiving winters: Clothing was light-years ahead of what Russians and Americans insisted on wearing when they first came to that part of the world.
Most of the latter had come from London, drawn, as were Walter Sickert and James McNeill Whistler through several winters in the 1880s, by the vivid and naturalistic subject matter and the preternaturally clear light.