1917] CAPE SABINE TO CLARENCE HEAD 283 



deep snows of spring, no one had attempted to pass from 

 point to point with dog-team in the attempt to survey 

 the coast. It was by far the most important task 

 within our reach, and I decided to attempt it with the 

 help of E-took-a-shoo, Arklio, and Ak-pood-a-shah-o. 

 We still had biscuit, pemmican, and oil enough for the 

 work. This could be supplemented, I hoped, with seal 

 and polar bear killed on the trip. 



Sunday, March 25, 1917, saw four heavily loaded 

 sledges and forty-two dogs dashing out of Etah. Six 

 hundred pounds on a 125 -pound sledge, and a 180- 

 pound man on top of that — a total of 905 pounds — was 

 a heavy load for my ten dogs. They had been well 

 fed, however, and were in excellent spirits, as their 

 tightly curled, bushy tails showed. Rounding Sunrise 

 Point, I pictured Doctor Hayes and his men, fifty-six 

 years before, laboriously pulling their boats northward 

 over the ice in search of an open Polar Sea. How per- 

 sistent that belief was in the minds of scientific men! 



Upon opening my precious four-year biscuit that night 

 at "Kab-loo-na-ding-me," I discovered, to my dismay, 

 a mass of mold, and immediately reproached myself for 

 not making an examination during the winter. A hasty 

 removal of the top layer disclosed, to my joy, that the 

 remainder was edible, while very musty; yet in com- 

 parison with none at all, it was of priceless value. 



At thirty-six below zero, the sledges dragged hard 

 over young ice covered with an inch of granular snow. 

 Sand could hardly have been worse. In 1914 we did 

 in three hours what in 1917 we took a day and a half 

 to accomplish. The Arctic is full of disappointments. 



As we were drinking our tea at Ka-mowitz, a party 

 of nine Eskimos drove past on their way to the musk-ox 



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