84 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 



to the absurd conclusion that I was neither east nor west of the 

 camp, but the answer had to be that my observation of the land on 

 passing it in previous years must have been wrong and that instead 

 of it being a low land gradually rising towards the interior, it 

 must be in reality a practically landlocked bay with a narrow en- 

 trance which I had never noticed. I knew that this entrance could 

 not be wide, for had it been I would have noticed it in passing the | 

 coast, which I had done both by boat in summer and by sled in 

 winter. 



Having decided that I must have discovered a new bay lying east 

 of the camp, I also had to conclude that the bay might be of any 

 conceivable contour and that the only safe thing would be to follow 

 all of the coast line. This I set about doing. For awhile the bank 

 was conspicuous and I could see the loom of it even in the darkness, 

 but after awhile it became more slopmg and lower and I had to be 

 continually stooping and picking up handfuls of snow or scratching 

 the ground to find whether I was on the grassy land or on the snow- 

 covered ice. I knew I could not be more than about three miles 

 from camp in a straight line, but I did not know, except very gen- 

 erally, which direction this was, so there was nothing for it but to 

 keep following every indentation of the bay. It took several hours, 

 and I arrived home at one o'clock in the morning, having been on 

 my feet about seventeen hours. 



I was, of course, not tired. When one is in good training almost 

 indefinite walking leaves you still ready to walk farther, and I was 

 in an especially good humor through having solved one of the most 

 interesting problems of the sort I had ever met. It seemed to me 

 an opportune moment to use it as an example for impressing a 

 valuable lesson upon my companions and I accordingly gave them 

 an extended lecture on the subject. It was only later it dawned on 

 me that they might not have been much interested at the time, and 

 it must be admitted that no one is likely to be in a very receptive 

 frame of mind who has sat up waiting for hours expecting somebody 

 to come home, and then fallen asleep to be awakened in the middle 

 of the night. It seems that on an earlier occasion I had impressed 

 on them what is really one of the first principles of arctic technique: 

 that if ever at night they came to the conclusion they were lost, 

 they should stop quietly where they were and wait for daylight. 

 One of them now wanted to know why I didn't follow my own rule 

 and sleep out all night. This was a point of view that had never 

 occurred to me, for it had never struck me that I was lost. 



This incident shows that it takes years of experience with any 



