THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 159 



the west coast of Banks Island to Norway Island, but not farther. 

 In other words, the Sachs was to establish, presumably at Cape 

 Kellett but possibly farther north, a permanent base of supplies 

 to which any party might retreat in case of shipwreck or other mis- 

 fortune farther north, or to which they might return when their 

 work farther north had been completed. 



But the most important item was that the North Star, under 

 command of Wilkins, was to come as early in the season as she 

 could to Banks Island and was to proceed northward along the 

 coast with the expectation of possibly meeting us at Norway Island. 

 In case she failed to find us or records left by us at Norway Island, 

 she was to proceed, if she could, across McClure Strait to Prince 

 Patrick Island, on the presumption that we would be waiting her 

 there. 



The North Star was a vessel especially suited to such plans, first 

 of all because she had a single propeller. The twin propellers of the 

 Sachs rendered her the least suitable of our three ships for ice 

 navigation, good as she was in open water, for being located at the 

 sides instead of amidships, these propellers stuck out at such angles 

 that they were very likely to be broken off by the ice. This was 

 the reason I did not expect the Sachs to go north beyond Kellett 

 unless she found the ice conditions especially favorable. But the 

 little Star, under her former owner, Captain Matt Andreasen, had 

 shown herself the most competent craft that had ever come to this 

 part of the Arctic for a certain kind of ice navigation. In the 

 spring, when the rivers open and the thaw water begins to flow in 

 little and big streams off all parts of the coast, the sea ice is melted 

 by this comparatively warm land water, and an open lane is formed 

 along the beach, while the heavier grounded ice is still continuous 

 along the coast a few hundred yards farther to sea, and the pack 

 is still heavy in the offing. With her fifty-two feet length and 

 draft of four feet two inches loaded, the Star was able to make 

 good progress along this lane when a clumsier boat of deeper draft 

 could have made none at all. 



My hope was that in this way the Star would be able to wriggle 

 up along the Banks Island coast and get as far north as Norway 

 Island early. Of course she could not carry much of a cargo (per- 

 haps twenty tons, though Captain Andreasen said he had once car- 

 ried twenty-seven), but with our plan of exploration this disadvan- 

 tage did not weigh much against her superiority as an ice boat. 

 She could bring four or five men and a dog team or two and am- 

 munition, with kerosene for our primus stoves and a few things of 



