612 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 



from Melville Island to the Bear. Gonzales would then place at 

 Storkerson's disposal men and equipment for the survey of the 

 northeast coast of Victoria Island and assist to that end. Storker- 

 son would proceed by whatever route he chose to the district to be 

 surveyed and would finish it if he could and make his way back 

 to the Bear, probably overland, either direct or by sled to Collin- 

 son Inlet and then overland with pack dogs to Walker Bay. The 

 Bear was then to proceed to Kellett and assist if necessary in the 

 launching of the Sachs. If Captain Bernard should have been 

 unable to launch the Sachs he and his party were to embark on the 

 Bear and the entire expedition should sail for Nome. 



So far as my sledge party was concerned, the assumption back 

 of these instructions was that if we were unable to reach Cape 

 Kellett before the end of the summer when it became imperative 

 to sail for a vessel that wanted to get out that year, we would 

 look after ourselves and get out somehow. There were various 

 methods of doing this and my mind was still open to the choice. 

 It was possible we would go east to Ellesmere Land, spend the 

 summer and early winter there, crossing to Greenland and travel- 

 ing south along the Greenland coast by sledge, connecting with 

 the Danish trading vessels the following year. More probably 

 we would come south through Byam Martin Channel to the north 

 coast of Victoria Island, spend the summer there, cross in the fall 

 by sled to Bernard Harbor and go home by way of Bear Lake and 

 the Mackenzie River. A third possibility was that we might find 

 some land upon which we would spend a year or might even decide 

 to spend a year on the ice. Of these secondary alternatives the 

 last was the most attractive to me. But of course we would try to 

 reach Kellett before the close of the season and I considered the 

 chances better than two in three that we should be there before 

 the 20th of August, an appropriate sailing date for a ship having no 

 other task than to get out to Bering Straits as directly as possible. 



The advance party now consisted of Noice, Knight, Emiu and 

 myself with two teams. We made fair progress but never fast, 

 for we had been driving the dogs rather hard for a long time and 

 they were a bit tired. The going was heavy also and not so much 

 easier as it was safer. The general advantage was that we had on 

 this sluggish-moving ice a feeling of the stability of all our sur- 

 roundings unknown to us when traveling in the vicinity of Alaska. 



As we advanced on the ice the soundings became deeper and 

 deeper until about a hundred miles from land we had five hundred 

 and twenty-two meters. Then they began to shallow very grad- 



