CHAPTER LVIII 



SPRING TRAVEL, 1917 



BY the time we got to Grassy it became apparent that the ad- 

 ditional men and dogs brought by Captain Gonzales were 

 eating more of our dried meat than their help was worth. 

 For reasons I shall not go into, it appeared to me then that I could 

 not solve the difficulty by merely sending them back, and was com- 

 pelled instead to delay a week for the killing of additional ovibos 

 which, unfortunately, we did not find very near the camp. The 

 weather conditions also were exceptionally bad. We had blizzards 

 so thick that you could not see over half a mile, accompanied by 

 temperature in the vicinity of fifty below zero. This is far the 

 worst winter weather I ever saw in the Arctic and was doubtless 

 local, the wind being caused by the high land of the Raglan Range 

 to the south. 



While we were getting the ovibos, I sent out an advance party 

 towards the new land, consisting of Castel in command, Charlie, 

 Knight, Noice, and Pikalu, with twenty-seven dogs and three sleds. 

 They were to go to the south coast of Borden Island (First Land) , 

 pick up a depot already landed by Castel and proceed east and 

 north, improving the survey of the coast which we had done poorly 

 the previous fall on account of bad weather. They were to follow 

 the east coast northward till it began to trend well west of north, 

 when they were to leave it and wait for us at the edge of the 

 shore floe, which we expected would be fifteen or twenty miles from 

 land in this quarter. 



As soon as the ovibos had been killed the rest of us followed, 

 camping in the snowhouses they had left for us but making slow 

 progress, for the weather continued extreme and the sleds dragged 

 heavily. 



That when I have been cold in the North it has been my own 

 fault, is illustrated by a diary entry of March 30th, the day we 

 reached Cape Mackay: "Started 12:40 P. M., reached land and 

 found Castel's trail about 11 P. M., distance twenty-eight miles 

 NNE . , . Weather very cold, minus fifty-four degrees Fahr., and 



60S 



