IN THE GOAT AND GLACIER FIELDS 



places and lots of open water, often breaking 

 thru the thin ice, which made progress slow. 



"About 2 o'clock we reached Skolai Lake at 

 the Nizina Glacier. Here we struck very hard 

 going, the snow being quite deep and soft. Still 

 we thought we could make it across to timber. 

 After some time of wallowing in the snow we 

 began to realize that we were up against the real 

 thing, but it was too late to turn back. We 

 were now getting the winds from the Nizina and 

 Skolai so hard that they could not be faced. 

 Our only salvation was to keep going. We had 

 to get off the lake and onto the glacier and go 

 quartering across so as to keep out of the worst 

 of the crevasses; yet we encountered a number 

 of them and passed thru the worst places when 

 darkness overtook us and this, of course, stopped 

 further progress for the day. We judged the 

 wind was blowing about seventy miles per hour. 

 By setting up our snowshoes against the back of 

 the sled and bringing a tarp around them, we 

 had some sort of a wind-break; then we took one 

 robe and spread this on the ice to sit on and drew 

 another robe over us. In this way we spent a 

 very unpleasant night. No matter how we 

 tucked and fixed the covering robe the snow 

 would drift in, and then our bodies would melt 

 it, and in this way we got wet, and when it be- 

 came light enough to see to travel we made a 

 start for timber, which was about two miles dis- 



55 



