OFF TO ELLESMERE LAND 289 



The difficult conditions of traveling compelled us 

 to shorten our next march to eight hours. Men and 

 dogs were exhausted. Our eyes were bloodshot, 

 highly inflamed and painful. The temperature had 

 suddenly dropped, and when I attempted to sleep I 

 suffered more from the cold than at any time since 

 leaving Annootok. The moisture from our breath 

 froze at once into crystals upon everything it touched. 



The short marches, the necessity for halting to rest 

 the dogs, and our own weariness brought about by 

 constant back-breaking lifting of komatiks over 

 rough, rocky places, made progress slower even than 

 had been anticipated. But encouragement came in 

 the increasing freshness of musk-ox signs, which gave 

 promise that our ambition was soon to be realized. 



Finally we turned into the bed of a very large river 

 a river when the weather was warm enough to make 

 the water flow, but now a stretch of solid ice. I 

 should say it was about a mile in width. On either 

 side snow-covered mountains rose abruptly to lofty 

 heights, with glaciers from the interior ice-cap now 

 and again pushing down through ravines. 



Everywhere we were surrounded by frozen deso- 

 lation. It would be difficult to imagine a more God- 

 forsaken region, but withal it possessed a rugged, 

 austere beauty, an impressive and inspiring grandeur. 



Here in the midst of this bleak, barren land came 

 to me a day that shall remain a life memory a day 

 that brought full recompense for all the hardship and 

 suffering that I had endured in the Arctic. 



