698 APPENDIX 



SUMMER WARMTH ON THE ICE 



By the middle of April the sun was fairly high and on calm and 

 clear days it gave enough heat to melt the snow, especially in the 

 vicinity of our sleds or anything else of a dark shade. Therefore, the 

 time for snowhouses was past and we had to start to use our tents. 

 Till the middle of June we used a single tent inside a snow wall with 

 one of our canvas boat covers as a second roof, thus protecting our- 

 selves from the cold nights and the occasional blizzards. By the middle 

 of June there was no snow to use for walls. As a single tent was not 

 enough to keep us comfortable, I had another larger tent made of 

 one of our extra sled covers and set up with the smaller tent inside 

 with a space of about 10 inches separating the two tents. This kind of 

 camp we used from June till the time we started for shore and it proved 

 very comfortable and satisfactory in every way. 



After the thaw commenced the ice was naturally always wet, so we 

 experienced great difficulty in keeping our bedding dry. Most all our 

 clothing and bedding was made of reindeer skins and so, in order to 

 be made to last and to be comfortable, they had to be protected from 

 the wet. These conditions I had anticipated and had provided against 

 by keeping two more sleds than I needed for traveling. The reason 

 was that all our sleds had toboggan bottoms or platforms between the 

 runners and underneath the benches to make them slide easily through 

 the rough ice and to prevent the benches from being broken by hitting 

 against the ice snags. When the thawing commenced I had the tobog- 

 gan bottoms removed from under the two extra sleds and of them made 

 a platform. This was placed inside our tent and served as a bed where 

 the five of us could sleep at night and sit in the daytime when there 

 was nothing else to do. To this platform more than anything else is 

 due the fact that we spent the summer on the ice in comfort. With- 

 out it our clothing, and particularly our bedding, would have been wet 

 in a very short time and so would have rotted, leaving us without 

 anything to sleep in. Such an eventuality would have compelled us to 

 turn shoreward sooner than we did. 



HOW WE COOKED OUR FOOD 



In our equipment were included the usual appliances for cooking 

 approved by modern explorers, the efficient primus stoves in which 

 kerosene or distillate are burned in vaporized form. Of the latter oil 

 we had at the commencement of our drift about 18 gallons. This if 

 used sparingly would probably have lasted us three months or more. 

 But this kind of fuel was better suited for use when traveling than 

 anything which could be obtained on the ice. As noted above, I there- 

 fore early stopped the use of the distillate and instead burned the fat 

 of seals and bears. At first our cooking was done indoors with the 



