206 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 



the first experience of the kind I have had when there was some- 

 thing on the sled to eat. In the past I have kept men and dogs 

 on full rations as long as there was one day's grub ahead, and I 

 wish I had done it this time. I believe we should have been here 

 and perhaps beyond this place before the spell of easterly wind 

 which made the leads that are giving us so much trouble now, had 

 we kept our dogs at full strength by keeping them on full rations, 

 feeding them in five days what we did feed them in ten, for they 

 would probably have gone from five to ten more miles per day. 

 Now the dogs are so poor it will take a week of slow travel and 

 good feeding to get them back to half their normal spirits. It 

 would take about two weeks of approximate rest to get them in real 

 form again. They will soon improve beyond what they have been, 

 however. Even yesterday they pulled a bit better. 



"As for us, we are taking solid comfort, with no worries for the 

 morrow. If it takes us a month to get ashore, we shall feed well 

 the whole time as we have done to-day — a feast on boiled seal 

 liver, tripe, flippers and blubber. All of us agreed we enjoyed it 

 more than any breakfast we have had this winter. We are staying 

 in camp to-day again to give the dogs a chance to rest and feed up 

 a little. The weather also is not agreeable.' There is the sort of 

 haze that might give us snowblindness and which makes it very 

 difficult to pick a trail. With our dogs weakened as they are now, 

 it would be foolish to flounder ahead through rough going when 

 there might be a few yards to one side or the other of us smooth 

 ice which we could see if the sun were out. So we are resting to-day, 

 hoping for sunshine and good luck to-morrow." 



May 20th did prove clear as we had hoped, but we had trouble 

 with open water. In the afternoon a lead opened which was about a 

 quarter of a mile wide at the narrowest place and ran at right an- 

 gles to our course, so that we were sure to lose a good deal of ground 

 by following it for a crossing. Furthermore, it seemed to be widen- 

 ing and the crossing place might not have been discoverable. 



This was a good time to try our sledboat. Perhaps it seems sur- 

 prising that we had not tried it before, for on many occasions there 

 had been as much as a day's delay by open water. One reason 

 why we suffered these delays was that on days of good luck we, 

 and especially the dogs, worked so hard that coming upon open 

 water was an excuse for resting, even more welcome than valid. 

 Rest meant not our rest alone, but recuperation for the dogs, so that 

 a day later when the lead had either frozen or closed they were able 

 to pull faster and farther. Another reason was that the leads were 



