52 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 



natives. Their equipment was naturally most of it aboard the 

 Alaska. 



When I realized how close we were to the land in Camden 

 Bay I attempted to put Beuchat and Jenness ashore. No attempt 

 was made to land Murray because his equipment was too heavy, 

 or McKinlay because he had enough magnetic gear with him to be 

 useful on the Karluk and too much for easy transportation ashore. 

 We got out to the skin-boat, hitched up a team of dogs, put a 

 certain amount of equipment into the boats, and detailed two 

 Eskimos to accompany them. It is probable that had the party 

 left with almost no equipment they could have reached shore, but 

 what we tried to have them take proved too much of a load, and 

 after getting a mile or two away from the ship they had to return. 

 New ice had formed between the old cakes so that the boat could 

 not be used as a boat, yet this new ice was not strong enough to 

 support it when hauled on a sledge. The sledge kept breaking 

 through, and the men also broke through, occasionally getting wet. 

 I was sorry that the attempt miscarried, and later events deepened 

 the regret. 



After this we stayed quietly aboard the ship while she drifted. 

 When the wind turned northeast I knew from long experience, al- 

 though we were too far from land to see, that there must be a 

 good deal of open water between the ice and the land. It seems 

 illogical when you look at the map, but it is a fact, attested by 

 universal observation between Point Barrow and Herschel Island, 

 that although a west wind there blows off the land it brings the ice 

 in to the land; and although an east wind blows off the ice, still 

 it commonly carries the ice awaj'- from shore enough to leave hand- 

 some room for ships to pass east and west along the coast. We 

 learned later that this reasoning held for our case, and that while 

 we were drifting helplessly westward, the Belvedere and other ships 

 were passing along the coast eastward, finding no obstruction. One 

 of them saw our smoke although we did not see theirs, the reason 

 being that their smoke was imperceptible against the dark land, 

 while ours was conspicuous out in the gray of the ice. 



The open water inshore became wider, and we began to see it 

 from the masthead. Then it came within three or four miles and 

 could be seen from the bridge. And here we were, frozen into a 

 westward-drifting floe, while just inshore of us was free and placid 

 water through which any ship could travel at will. The only 

 comfort was to remember that the Alaska and Sachs, if they had 

 stuck to the vicinity of land, would be safe now somewhere in this 



