THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 207 



seldom actually open water. Usually they had been formed a few 

 hours or even a day before and were covered by young ice which, 

 although not strong enough to support a sled, was thick enough so 

 that it would have had to be broken before a boat could be forced 

 through. Forcing a canvas boat through young ice always chafes 

 it along the water line, and although our raft cover was good qual- 

 ity No. 2 canvas, we felt that a dozen crossings through young ice 

 would probably wear a hole in it. But now the weather was so 

 warm that even if leads were several hours old, the sun had pre- 

 vented the formation of ice and they were as crossable as an ordi- 

 nary river in summertime. 



Before we came to this particular lead we had already made up 

 our minds that we would use the sledboat at the next one. As a 

 matter of interest I made note of how long it took us to use the 

 boat for the first time. We promptly unloaded the sled, spread 

 the cover on the ground and placed the sled upon the middle of it. 

 We took two sticks about six feet long, carried for the purpose, and 

 lashed one crosswise of the sled near the front end and the other 

 near the back end. Between the ends of these sticks we lashed one 

 of our skis on each side. This made a frame which gave the boat 

 a beam of six feet instead of only about twenty-five inches, which 

 was the width of our fourteen-foot long sled. This frame con- 

 structed, the tarpaulin was lashed up on the sides of the sled, and 

 the sled had become a boat which would carry about a thousand 

 pounds, enabling us to take our load across in two trips, carry- 

 ing each time three of the dogs. It took exactly two hours from the 

 time we stopped at the lead, a quarter of a mile wide, until we had 

 the sled loaded and were on our way again on the other side. 



The advantage of this system of crossing a lead is manifest to 

 any one, but especially to those who have read, for instance, of 

 Nansen's boats for crossing open water. These were of fragile can- 

 vas, and as he carried them on the sleds with the canvas stretched 

 tightly over their frames, they were easily punctured when the 

 sleds happened to upset or collide with broken ice. Nansen 

 accordingly found that besides the disadvantage of the great care 

 they required, they were so badly damaged and their covers so full 

 of holes when open water was reached that it took several days of 

 repairs to make them seaworthy. 



When we were through using our tarpaulin, which was about eigh- 

 teen feet long and ten feet wide, we gave it a beating to remove any 

 clinging ice. Sometimes at low temperatures a quarter of an inch 

 or more of ice had formed on the canvas while we were crossing, 



