GREENLAND BY THE POLAR SEA 



The fight for progress through the Polar pack-ice was 

 monotonous and strenuous. Hour after hour was spent in the 

 same way. Sometimes the axe had to break the ice-blocks ; 

 sometimes we had to lift the sledges when they toppled over ; 

 and the whole time we had to force the dogs forward with 

 iron-fisted discipline, through sharp and slippery blocks of ice 

 where it was difficult to find so good a foothold that the sledges 

 could be pressed through the difficult passages without delays. 



At all the great capes the same pressure-ice was piled 

 across the ice-foot as an obstructing wall, through which we 

 could not hope to pass. We therefore had to work our way 

 either along the belt of tidal water on the shiny ice, or, where 

 this was impossible, along those rare places where a belated 

 lane from January and February had stretched an arm of 

 young ice towards land. But we tried as far as possible not to 

 get too far out to sea, as these new lanes often end in a cul- 

 de-sac and force one into a wilderness of pressure-ice. 



During the forenoon we passed Gap Valley, where Beau- 

 mont and his men pulled their heavy sledges up across land 

 when they found the route forward blocked by open water 

 near Cape Brevoort. As the name implies, the valley here 

 forms a broad gap betweeD two steep mountains, a stony valley 

 full of doughs which goes in towards the great lowland near 

 Newman Bay. We who have our dogs to help us bow down 

 in deep respect to those sick and exhausted men who them- 

 selves had to pull their heavy, iron-mounted sledges up across 

 the trackless terrain with its many large stones which lay bare 

 of snow. Maybe those old pioneers were unpractical as 

 regards their equipment, but what stubbornness and pride 

 they must have possessed, these enduring and herculean 

 mariners who were the first beasts of burden for the Polar 

 travellers ! 



Near Repulse Harbour we succeeded in climbing on to 

 an ice-foot along which driving was possible, although the 

 gigantic Sikussaq ridges in some places towered up and formed 

 banks from 10 to 30 metres high. These phenomena testify 

 to the fights which every year are fought out between the 

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