^56 FOUR YEARS IN THE WHITE NORTH [May 



At Cape Southwest we built another cairn and left 

 a record of our visit in a chocolate-tin. 



Remarks by Noo-ka-ping-wa: "The gyrfalcon is the 

 swiftest bird in the North. It will overtake and capt- 

 ure even the ptarmigan, which is very fast. It also 

 catches little auks, ducks, and even glaucous gulls. 

 The owl must be very strong to catch and hold a large 

 hare." 



On the 5th we traveled east with a strong wind and 

 drift, which continued right up to our igloo door. As 

 we approached I said to myself, "Yes, there is the igloo 

 with a pemmican-tin on top of it." To my astonish- 

 ment, a few seconds later the tin became animated and 

 dissolved into the laughing mouth and long black hair 

 of Arklio. He had his head right up through the 

 ventilating hole in the top of the snow house, watching 

 us drive into town. All happy to be together again. 



It needed something more than a strong wind, drift, 

 and breaking crust to discourage us on our next day's 

 march. We were homeward bound. A rapid run over 

 the smooth ice of Ulve Fiord brought us to our old igloo 

 at Bjornesundet, where another cairn and record were 

 left. 



We were now gradually turning night into day — that 

 is, we were traveling while the sun was low in the north 

 and sleeping while it was high in the south. It was ab- 

 solutely necessary to wear our amber-colored glasses 

 constantly. Snow-blindness and extreme suffering al- 

 ways follow a few hours' exposure to the reflected rays 

 of the sun during the month of May. In April the 

 sun is so low that the angle of incidence is small, and 

 consequently the reflected rays are not in the least 

 painful. Finally, in June the snow-fields have lost 



