THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 167 



line and on closer approach by the fact that the hummocks are 

 frequently glare. That can never be the case with salty ice, which 

 is sticky and therefore always has snow adhering to it. Being 

 glare, the old ice gives poor footing for men and dogs, yet we com- 

 monly prefer it as being smoother. It is not really smooth, but like 

 rolling hills from which the angles of youth have been smoothed 

 by weathering. Young ice is frequently heaped up in indescribable 

 confusion, the jagged ridges of it sometimes fifty or sixty feet above 

 water level and occasionally so rough that an unharnessed dog is 

 unable to make his way over it. When we come to such ridges we 

 have to make a road with pickaxes and progress is occasionally less 

 than a hundred yards per hour. We had had a large number on the 

 way from shore, but they were already getting noticeably fewer, 

 lower, and less difficult to traverse. 



April 9th we could make only two miles northing, being com- 

 pelled to camp by a rising gale. For an hour the wind had been in- 

 creasing from the southwest, with the snowflakes falling more 

 thickly, when we decided to pick a camp site. We chose it in the 

 lee of a ridge about thirty feet high giving a degree of shelter, but 

 when we were about to pitch the tent Andreasen (whom we always 

 called Ole, and shall in this book hereafter) noticed a crack in the 

 ice. This raised the question of whether the ice was more likely 

 to break in the vicinity of the ridge than farther away. Finally, 

 we decided on an unsheltered, level ice area, pitched the tent and 

 built a snow wall to windward to break the force of the gale. The 

 event showed we probably owed our lives to Ole's having noticed 

 the tiny ice crack and so prevented our camping in the lee of the 

 ridge. 



The gale proved to be the worst I have ever seen at sea.* Al- 

 though the windbreak was built so high that only the top of the tent 

 projected above it, the flapping of the Burberry was so loud and 

 the hum of the breaking ice so continuous, that when in the even- 

 ing Storkerson went out to stand watch we in the tent were unable 

 to hear him though he shouted his loudest. When he came in again 

 to know why his shouts had not been answered I decided that 

 there was no point in standing guard and we all lay down and tried 

 to sleep. 



We knew well that the ice was breaking up around us and we 



*The support party, according to McConnell's diary, were compelled to 

 camp by this same gale. "Sleet alternated with snow, and soon the dogs 

 were covered with ice," writes McConnell; "as for ourselves, our parkas soon 

 became suits of icy mail." 



