V 



Spring in the North 



MUCH surveying time had been wasted during the run to 

 Hebron, so Baker was anxious to estabhsh the next 

 survey camp as soon as possible. Renatus, who was under 

 open arrest, had settled down peacefully enough in Nain and was 

 given employment by the surveyors when he was not hunting; 

 he was particularly good at making snow houses and from now on 

 the camps became more comfortable. But life was still hard and 

 the entries in Lieutenant Commander Baker's diary for 2^th to 

 28th February are typical of the conditions. 



Sunday, 2jth February. Had a most disturbed night. We turned in about 

 2130 and I had been asleep about an hour when I woke up suddenly feeling 

 that something was wrong. My first thought was that the dogs had broken 

 into the snow house next door and were getting at the seals there. Kwalik, 

 Dennis' new dog, which is always tied up, had been giving tongue earlier on 

 in the evening and I remarked that I thought there was some mischief afoot 

 among the dogs, but Dennis and I listened and could not hear anything so 

 thought all was O.K. 



Dennis was awake by this time and we sat up and listened and soon made 

 out distinct noises of crunching. Cursing, we pulled on our boots and 

 gloves and jammed our caps on and burst out of our snow house in a rage to 

 find seven dogs having the time of their lives in Henry's snow house, chewing 

 the seals. I armed myself with an ice spear handle and Dennis poked them 

 out one by one, and accompanied by much lurid language on both our parts, 

 I gave each dog a thundering good hammering. Got them all out as I thought 

 and then we blocked up the holes and pulled the komatiks up and turned them 

 over on top and packed an assortment of gear round and on it and went 

 back and started to turn in. We hadn't been in more than a minute or two 

 when we again heard sounds of scrunching and both of us pulled our wind 

 proofs on this time as it had been a bit chilly before and dashed out again 

 thinking the dogs had broken in again. Nothing had been disturbed and the 

 dogs all seemed quiet so I got my torch and pulled away a komatik and looked 

 in and found that we had locked Lively, Dennis' leader, in with the seals and 

 he was having the time of his life. He got what the others got and we hauled 

 the seals out and stored them in the spare tent. They did not get much off 

 them as they were frozen as hard as rocks and were smooth. Turned in and 

 brewed a mug of cocoa as we were both very hoarse and thirsty after all 



