FREDERICK JACKSON ISLAND 99 



and fogs and snow and the state of the ice, they 

 threaded their way, sometimes by sledge, sometimes by 

 kayak, through mazes of open channels, leaping from 

 floe to floe and ferrying back to get their baggage over, 

 hundreds of yards on mere brash, dragging the sledges 

 after them in constant fear of their capsizing into the 

 water. Then the ice gave out and, taking to their 

 kayaks, they sailed and paddled to what is now known 

 as Frederick Jackson Island in the north of the Franz 

 Josef Archipelago. 



Here they wintered, quite at a loss at first to know 

 where they were, owing to their watches having run 

 down during a great effort of thirty-six hours at a 

 stretch, so that they did not know their longitude, 

 though they subsequently concluded they must be 

 somewhere on Franz Josef Land within 140 miles of 

 Eira Harbour. They built a hut and altogether lived 

 passably well, there being no lack of food, thanks 

 mainly to the bears, whose visits were embarrassing in 

 their frequency though the visitors were not unwelcome 

 when they came to stay. 



On the 19th of May they set out for the south, down 

 British Channel, with their sledges and kayaks, and 

 five days afterwards, when off' Cape M'Clintock, while 

 Johansen was busy lashing the sail and mast securely to 

 the deck of his kayak to prevent their being blown 

 away, Nansen went on ahead to look for a camping 

 ground and fell through a crack in the ice which had 

 been hidden by the snow. He tried to get out, but 

 with his skis firmly fastened could not pull them up 

 through the rubble of ice which had fallen into the 

 water on the top of them, and, being harnessed to the 



