254 FARTHEST NORTH 



again ! And the ' fiskegratin' was delicious. It gives one 

 such a sense of satisfaction to feel that, in spite of every- 

 thing, one is making a little way. The temperature is 

 beginning to be bad now ; the snow is quite wet, and 

 some water has entered my kayak, which I suppose melted 

 on the deck and ran down through the open side where 

 the lacing is, which we have not yet sewn fast. We are 

 waiting for good weather in order to get the covers 

 thoroughly dry first, and then stretch them well. 



"Monday, June loth. In spite of the most impene- 

 trable mist and the most detestable going on soppy 

 snow, which has not yet been sufficientl}' exposed to frost 

 to become granular, and where the sledges rode their 

 very heaviest, we still managed to make good, even 

 progress the whole day yesterday. There were innumer- 

 able lanes, of course, to deal with, and many crossings 

 on loose pieces of ice, which we accomplished at a pinch. 

 But the ice is fiat here everywhere, and every little 

 counts. It is the same thin winter- ice of about three 

 feet in thickness. I only saw a couple of old Hoes yes- 

 terday — they were in the neighborhood of our camping- 

 eround, which was also on an old floe ; otherwise the 

 ice is new, and in places very new. We went over some 

 large expanses yesterday of ice one foot or less in thick- 

 ness. The last of these tracts in particular was very 

 remarkable, and must at one time have been an immense 

 pool; the ice on it was so thin that it cannot be long 

 before it melts altooether. There was water on all this 



