1882-03-15:1882-03-22

Putting out provisions.

Wednesday March 15th 1882

I was busy all day making some more photographs and preparing for our start on Saturday. I made one negative of dogs hauling ice which turned out very well, the dogs having kept perfectly still during the exposure. Lt.’s Kislingbury and Greely and also Cross and Jens were included in the group.

Thursday March 16th 1882

Almost crazed getting ready for our start. Clothing to be collected, cooking gear to look after, etc. The Dr. has taken a wise plan; he and I had made a complete list of all that we are required to take and divided this again and each of us looking up and preparing the articles set down on our list and checking the same when added to our pile in the lean-to. The brains are racked to remember every little thing as anything left behind cannot be replaced.

Max: -32.1 Min: -42.2.

Friday March 17th 1882

Was a cold St Patrick’s day, Max:-30.6 Min:-35.6

Saturday March 18th 1882

Our preparations are now complete and will start tomorrow morning. A good dinner and a quart of ardent enlivened the last evening we shall spend under roof for some time.

Sunday March 19th 1882

This morning at 9:40 a.m. accompanied by Jewell and Fred the Esquimaux we made our start for the North. Jewell will return after supporting us as far as Lincoln Bay. Our party will then consist of but three persons, Dr. Pavy, myself and the driver Jens. Nine dogs to our team and 8 to Jewells. The morning was cloudy and a little blustery but afterwards improved. I made a photograph of the outfit including myself also in the picture with Gardiner to make the exposure. Lt. Kislingbury walked with us as far as Cape Murchison where he bade us “Godspeed” and we pursued our way. Temp when started was only -24 but was ten degrees lower when we reached Depot “B” at Shift Rudder Bay where we arrived at 3:40 p.m.

We found the party of seven just returned from Greenland shore. Their experience was a very trying and unpleasant one, and the temperatures they were called to withstand were probably lower than have ever been recorded by parties in the field. When their first camp was made the temp stood -53 and during the night fell below -61 the point at which their thermometer was graduated and below which there was no registry—the index point was forced below the scale and stood in the bulb. Schneider gave up first day out from Depot “B” and was sent back to the snowhouse with Biederbeck with nurse (see sledge journal) not one of the party has escaped injured fingers and scarified noses and cheeks. The large party crowded us out of the snowhouse so Jewell and I dug a hole in a large bank of closely packed snow and in this we passed a fairly comfortable night. At an early hour we were aroused by the seven sleepers arriving at our igloo to bid us goodbye and we drowsily pulled aside the flap of our sleeping bags to reply to their salutation. Lynn crawled on top of our fragile crystal palace to shout his good wishes the ventilation hole in the roof. To show a proper amount of appreciation we turned our faces, Jewell and I, in the direction from which the sound issued, when crash came a swaddled foot through the snowy chill precipitating on our smiling upturned faces clouds and huge blocks of frosty snow. Lynn avers that he saw clouds of sulphur escape as he beat a hasty retreat to join his companions. Temp at midnight in hut -1 outside the thermometer was —39.

Monday March 20th 1882

After the early start of Brainards party for the home Station we got another nap. Started at 10 a.m.: the day gloomy and unpleasant. We found the traveling on ice foot very good for some distance when we were compelled to take to the strait where to ice was rough beyond description. The piled up masses of ice disputed our right of way on the ice foot, and the straits were only to be traveled over the most disruptive of rubble ice crushed into the greatest irregularity and unevenness by the tides and currents in the fall before the frost cemented it together. It conveyed more the impression of a stormy sea lashed into fury and frozen instantly into immobility. Temp during day 20 below zero but with a SE blowing made traveling very uncomfortable. Snow began to fall and at 6:30 p.m. had so increased that we could not see our way and so went into camp on the icefoot between Cape Beechy and Wrangle Bay. Jewell and I dug snowhouse while Dr. and Jens fed the dogs. The moment we camped they curled themselves like hedgehogs and the snow dusting about them soon enveloped them in a white sheet beneath which they slept until the smell of chopped pemmican brought them to their feet when it necessary for one of the drivers, me, to keep them in abeyance while the others scattered the food in the snow. The restraint was then withdrawn when there was a rush—snarl—and the frozen meal was dispatched at almost one gulp by the wolfish animals. They then burrowed again the snow where they remained quiet until near morning when they were sufficiently rested to again prance around disturbing our rest by their snarling at and quarreling with each other. The dogs of one team appeared to be the sworn enemies of the other and woe betide the luckless dog that wanders into the enemies camp. Unless his friends, generalled by the King dog, can come to the rescue, a sad remnant of caninity is all that will be left to hobble back to his comrades. Barometer has been falling all day.

Tuesday March 21st 1882

Weather was still thick and threatening when we emerged from our burrow in the snow this morning. We did not get started before noon. The temp was mild -10, but the wind was still blowing. We had great difficulty in proceeding, the high tides harassing us along the icefoot. (I) know of nothing I can compare the nature of ice to. I have never seen rocks on land so dispersed as to make so uneven a surface as the rubble ice over which we traveled. One of us would advance with an axe to pick out a route and reduce obstructions when necessary. The other, one at the upstanders steering and pushing, the driver at the lines winding the dogs through the narrow openings among the hummocks and rubble, followed slowly and laboriously and notwithstanding our care the sledges (were) upset twice and the runner of Jens so wrenched that it was necessary to unload and relash it. It is surprising the amount of rough usage the Esk. sledges will stand. They are put together entirely with lashings of walrus hide and when loaded—as they were—with over 600 Ibs. each, they will go over a track of such roughness that the dogs themselves have to climb and jump over the obstacle. One runner will glide up over a sharp block of ice from a few feet high while the other falls in some crevice below. The whole weight is thrown on the latter which is turned over on its side until it touches the crosspieces. Presently the sledge will emerge bound off into a smooth place and land on its feet like a cat—the elastic thongs bringing the runner again vertically under the sledge.

We arrived at Wrangle Bay at 7:30 and for the first time since leaving the Station erected our tent which—intended to accommodate three—was too small to shelter us all and Jewell and I made a small hole in the snow, just large enough to admit of spreading out the sleeping bag where we spent a rather uncomfortable night with the temp at only -24. My knees were swollen and rather stiff which made me fear a possible attack of my old enemy the “acute”: but the morning reassured me to a certain extent.

Wednesday March 22nd 1882

Today after threading our way through some very rough ice we reached a large floe of the paleocrystic ice of Sir George. On this ice the snow was sufficiently glazed and hard to bear the sledges. We stopped at Mount Parry to pick up the cache of provisions left there by the Dr. last autumn. On approaching the place we found the tracks of large polar bear and on examination of the cache found that the brute had eaten almost all the pemmican. He had also torn open the bag containing the hard tack: but on not finding the contents palatable had scattered them among the snow and turned his attention to the pemmican of which he made a lunch of almost 70 lbs!

Gathering up the remnants of the depot we proceeded, finding the traveling very good over a strip of young ice that extended for a few miles towards Cape Frederick VII. The icefront along this place presented a most remarkable appearance. It was fully fifty feet high in an almost perpendicular wall and must have been created under great pressure. The surface on which the sun blazed and glistened was as polished and resplendent as a silver rampart studded with jewels.

We soon passed off the young ice and traveled over a succession of paleocrystic floes which afforded even better travel than the season ice which was covered with a salty effluence that made traction difficult. The only difficulty we experienced was in passing from one floe to another where the edges were askew and piled up, but even here the snow had drifted so that we could almost always find a place where the chasm between the floes was edged over.

At 1 p.m. it was so calm and still that we stopped a short time to melt some ice and quench our thirst. We were so comfortable and the weather looked so pleasant that we were surprised to find that it was 36° below zero. We encountered some rough traveling before we camped in Lincoln Bay about one mile north of the English depot at 5:30 p.m. Jewell and I set to work to build another snowhouse on which we spent two or three hours before its dimensions and finish suited us. We spent the (more) time because we knew that it was to be our headquarters for some time while we are advancing our provisions along the coast to the North.

Temperature at 6 p.m. was -35°