874 FOUR YEARS IN THE WHITE NORTH 



no water beneath. The weather was clear, calm, and 

 crisply cold, with a temperature of more than 40 de- 

 grees below zero, Fahrenheit. Because our dogs were 

 fresh and rested, we made fairly good time, despite the 

 deep snow, until we had passed Salvo Island. 



After we left that island, we soon struck the "poo- 

 tenook," and the going was fearful. We waded through 

 thin-crusted snow nearly two feet deep, the lower por- 

 tion saturated with water, and we had to push the 

 sledges along to help the dogs. Doctor Hunt and I tried 

 our snow-shoes, but they helped us only in places. Such 

 going, at such low temperature, soon wears out both 

 dogs and men, and we had not gone far before we had 

 to make camp. A low floeberg afforded us a camp-site 

 out of the slush. 



The next day we got no farther than Camp Melville, 

 the going all day having been through "pootenook." In 

 four marches out from our camp at Cape Melville we 

 made so little distance that in the dim noonday twilight 

 we could still discern the black cliff, "Imnadooksuah," 

 just to the east of the cape, and we wondered if we 

 should ever leave it behind. 



Men and dogs were discouraged. Food was not 

 abundant, and the going exceedingly hard and weari- 

 some. The twenty-fourth day of December was par- 

 ticularly hard. Doctor Hunt snow-shoed until the ten- 

 dons in his ankles became chafed and inflamed, and he 

 developed such a case of mal du racquette that he could 

 hardly walk farther; I froze both my big toes, and 

 wore two big sores on the back of my ankle where the 

 thong in my boot passed across. A bitter cold wind 

 blew down from the ice-cap to the northeast, and a chill 

 damp snow-fog enveloped us as the afternoon wore on 



