THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 477 



have had a view of Castel Bay and the river valley running 

 inland. 



At Mercy Bay in a letter awaiting me from Storkerson I learned 

 the reason of his not coming to Cape Alfred. First Captain Gon- 

 zales had attempted to cross overland from the Polar Bear directly 

 to Mercy Bay and had failed. Then Storkerson tried to make the 

 same overland trip with a party of which Captain Gonzales was a 

 member. It was now about midwinter, very dark and stormy, 

 and the country proved mountainous. The Captain had been many 

 years a whaler in the Arctic and had methods and ideas of travel 

 which made him very uncomfortable, and he gave the narrative of 

 this expedition much the sound of a typical polar venture of thirty 

 or forty years ago. Tents had to be used, for snowhouses were 

 assumed to be inferior, several food courses had to be cooked at 

 each meal, and the cooking took far into the night, using up much 

 of what should have been sleeping time. Hoar frost gathered on 

 everything, the men's clothing got wet, and finally Captain Gonzales 

 froze his feet. They had almost reached Mercy Bay when Stork- 

 erson was compelled to put the Captain in a sleeping bag and haul 

 him all the way back to the Bear. Here endeth the second lesson ! 



The third attempt to get the sledges from Mercy Bay was suc- 

 cessful. This time Storkerson followed the coast around. In sev- 

 eral places and especially near Rodd Head they had great diffi- 

 culty and were in some danger. Contrary to anybody's expectation 

 the sea was open there even around Christmas time and they were 

 compelled to travel on such dangerous young ice that they had 

 many narrow escapes from falling into the water. 



When Storkerson got home with the sleds he found the instruc- 

 tions that had been brought over by Thomsen. By this time re- 

 peated trips in the worst time of year had made many of the dogs 

 sore-footed; others of them had died from the contagious dog 

 disease which had already appeared some days before I left the 

 Bear. Storkerson now sent Herman Kilian and Palaiyak with a 

 message to leave for me at Mercy Bay, saying that conditions in 

 the east were such that it would not be feasible to make the western 

 trip unless I gave up entirely the New Land survey, and that he 

 would assume that I preferred the New Land survey and would 

 go ahead with it. Had Herman continued to the Star it would 

 have saved us a great deal of worry and also accelerated our move- 

 ments. But especially it would have saved their own party the 

 hard overland trip back to the Bear for which they had not been 

 properly outfitted. 



