THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 147 



Since the relative speed of the floes can never differ by much more 

 than two miles, the rate at which you have to flee is never more 

 than two miles an hour and commonly less. Still, if the breaking 

 up begins when you are sleeping, the awakening is abrupt and some- 

 thing has to be done in a hurry. 



We have learned to make our winter camps so comfortable that 

 when on land we always undress at night, and on the sea ice we do 

 so whenever the camp site seems to be comparatively safe. One 

 important aid to safety is that the tremors of breaking ice and the 

 groaning of it are transmitted for miles through ice, where they 

 might not be audible at all through the air. A snowhouse is so 

 sound-proof that the barking and snarling of fighting dogs outside 

 can seldom be heard, but their spurning of the snow and tumbling 

 about is plainly audible, especially if you are lying in bed with 

 your ear to the ice. This is how we hear dog-fights, which have to 

 be promptly stopped. And this is how we hear the approach of a 

 bear, for the crunching of snow under his heavy tread can be heard 

 through the ice for even a hundred yards in spite of a gale whose 

 whistle and hum would make it difficult for men to converse stand- 

 ing close to each other out-of-doors. In case of a dog-fight or the 

 approach of a bear we commonly enough run out naked, no matter 

 what the temperature ; for we find it true in fact as in theory that 

 a chilling of the entire body simultaneously produces no ill effects, 

 and the fight can be stopped or the bear killed in from thirty sec- 

 onds to two minutes. 



But with the breaking up of ice it is different. When we feel 

 the quivers of the approaching pressure, or hear the detonations of 

 the breaking or the high-pitched squealing as one heavy flat piece 

 slides over another, one of us may run outside to spy out the situa- 

 tion, but unless his report is most reassuring we dress as quickly 

 as firemen upon the ringing of an alarm. Clothes have no buttons 

 and shoes no laces, and it isn't long till we are ready to move. The 

 sleds are kept loaded except for bedding and cooking gear, and 

 these can be rapidly taken from camp and added. Harnessing 

 the dogs is also a quick process; each man can harness about two 

 dogs per minute. 



In our five years of work on moving ice it has never actually 

 happened that we had to flee precipitately except on one occasion, 

 when by good fortune our sleds were already loaded. But it has 

 often happened during the day's march that a situation quite as 

 dangerous, though not so startling, has developed. This is when 

 we are traveling across ice that has been grinding and is still under 



