358 CONQUERING THE ARCTIC ICE 



for it, and the time may come, or ought to come, when these 

 natives will be able to live on the mine, by supplying coal to 

 the schools at Icy Cape, Wainwright Inlet, and Point Barrow. 

 If the plan succeeds it will only be another of the endeavours 

 of the American Government to teach these people to do really 

 useful work. 



On Wednesday, November 20, I left the kind people at 

 Wainwright and started alone for Icy Cape. At first all went 

 well, but then I struck some rough ice and had an awful time. 

 I had to go ahead to break the trail, and the sledge, being thus 

 unguarded, capsized time after time, was run into a snowdrift, 

 or brought up against a sharp piece of ice. Whenever any of 

 these things happened, as they very often did, I had to go back to 

 the sledge, right it, dig it out of the snow, or disentangle it from 

 the ice, as the case might be. The dogs had now learned to 

 follow my every movement, and when I had to attend to the 

 sledge they at once rushed after me and got their traces badly 

 tangled. In their endeavours to get out of their difficulty they 

 would then bite them in two, and when the sledge was ready to 

 move I had to disentangle the traces of my nine dogs, which 

 were always in a hopeless state of confusion. Then I had to 

 knot together the chewed traces, take the hauling straps over 

 my shoulder, and start the sledge from ahead of the dogs. For 

 two minutes all might go well; then again I would have a 

 capsized sledge, and the same trouble would begin afresh. 



It was the hardest day I had been through yet, and I felt as 

 if I could go no further when I came to the sand-spit I had 

 been making for. But there was a house only three miles away, 

 and after a short rest we started again. It was dark, the moon 

 had not yet risen over the horizon, and the sand-spit was bare of 

 snow, only, as it were, glazed over with ice, which made the 

 going very hard. It cut the feet of the dogs badly and wore 

 through their pads ; even my kamicks were torn, and all the 

 time it was getting darker and darker. There was a trail on 

 the sand-spit, but I could not see it, and I had to light a candle 

 and shelter its feeble flame from a light draught from S.W., 

 while I toiled and toiled, calling and encouraging my footsore 

 and weary animals to follow. 



At last, at 8.30 P.M., we heard the faint bark of a dog. The 

 sound put new life into my dogs and myself. We all did our best, 



