48 NEAREST THE POLE 



until high-water, with a heavy berg-piece pressing 

 against her stern and threatening momentarily to 

 press her up the shore beyond possibility of floating 

 again. 



Almost unmanageable with her twisted rudder, it 

 was a slow and difficult job to work her through the 

 running ice farther up the bay to a supposedly less- 

 exposed berth, snowing and blowing all this time. 

 Here the back of the rudder was straightened somewhat. 



Early in the morning of the 3d, a moving floe forced 

 the Roosevelt ashore again, where she hung until the 

 next high-water, and she was hardly pulled off when 

 another floe jammed her hard and fast aground again. 

 I was very anxious to get out of this dangerous and 

 trying position, where the rapid and vicious move- 

 ments of the ice were a constant menace, but a 

 reconnoissance from an elevation near the Roosevelt 

 indicated that the channel north of us was simply 

 solid with ice. 



Shortly after midnight of the 3d, the Roosevelt 

 floated again and, a southerly breeze forming a little 

 water at the mouth of the bay, we steamed out at 

 3:30 A. M. and succeeded in getting under the delta 

 of Shelter River just south of Cape Union, and in 

 butting into a natural dock among some stranded 

 berg-pieces. Here the ship had one foot of water under 

 her keel and as we moored her, the slack ice through 

 which we had come jammed tight with floes packing 

 against the barrier at Cape Union. Here we enjoyed 

 a fine day with the temperature in the low twenties 

 and experienced a few hours of peace. The river 

 delta to the north and stranded berg-pieces to the 



