CHAPTER XIV 



THE ICE JOURNEY BEGINS IN MISFORTUNE AND DIFFICULTY 



THE third day after I got home everything was ready for the 

 journey to Martin Point and thence out on the ice. But now 

 nature took a hand. One of the worst gales that any of us 

 had ever seen blew up from the southwest. Not only was the wind 

 terrific for two or three days, but the temperature was lower, con- 

 sidering the wind velocity, than I had previously seen it on the 

 mainland of North America (37° below zero F. with a wind we 

 estimated at 60 to 80 miles an hour), although I have since seen 

 worse weather out on the Canadian islands. This wind delayed 

 us for two or three days, at the end of which our caravan started. 

 We arrived in two days. 



On the way to Martin Point we saw to seaward black patches 

 in the sky, the reflection in the clouds of open water not far off- 

 shore. From the information of Eskimos, whalers and our own 

 people alike, we knew that for a month or two previous to this 

 the ice to an unknown distance from land had been lying quiet 

 and fairly level. It must have been unbroken for twenty or thirty 

 miles out at least, for no water sky had been seen from shore even 

 in the far distance since shortly after Christmas. If we only could 

 have started two or three weeks earlier, as had been planned, 

 or even a week earlier, we could have made rapid progress away 

 from land for the first twenty or thirty miles. This is the most 

 critical belt, for the obstructions to travel are usually greater the 

 nearer you are to shore. 



Now the prospects did not look good, for the blackness was 

 reflected so high in the clouds that it was clear the open water was 

 not more than four or five miles from the beach. What we had to 

 hope for was a spell of cold and calm weather, giving young ice a 

 chance to form over the open stretches out of which the wind had 

 blown the old ice, drifting it to seaward. But that was just the 

 sort of weather we were not having and did not soon get. The early 

 part of the gale had been at a temperature of 37° F. below zero, 

 which is extraordinary for a wind of over 80 miles an hour, as 



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