THE WINTER JOURNEY 243 
with fur, which we had made in the hut, across our bala- 
clavas in front of our noses, and these were of the greatest 
comfort. ‘They formed other places upon which our breath 
could freeze, and the lower parts of our faces were soon 
covered with solid sheets of ice, which was in itself an 
additional protection. This was a normal and not uncom- 
fortable condition during the journey: the hair on our 
faces kept the ice away from the skin, and for myself I 
would rather have the ice than be without it, until I want 
to get my balaclava off to drink my hoosh. We only made 
24 miles, and it took 8 hours. 
It blew force3 that night with a temperature of —65.2°, 
and there was some drift. This was pretty bad, but luckily 
the wind dropped to a light breeze by the time we were 
ready to start the next morning (July 2). The tempera- 
ture was then - 60°, and continued so all day, falling lower 
in the evening. At 4 p.m. we watched a bank of fog form 
over the peninsula to our left and noticed at the same 
time that our frozen mitts thawed out on our hands, and 
the outlines of the land as shown by the stars became ob- 
scured. We made 24 miles with the usual relaying, and 
camped at 8 p.m. with the temperature - 65°. It really 
was a terrible march, and parts of both my feet were frozen 
at lunch. After supper I pricked six or seven of the worst 
blisters, and the relief was considerable. 
I have met with amusement people who say, ‘‘ Oh, we 
had minus fifty temperatures in Canada; they didn’t 
worry me,” or “ I’ve been down to minus sixty something 
in Siberia.”” And then you find that they had nice dry 
clothing, a nice night’s sleep in a nice aired bed, and had 
just walked out after lunch for a few minutes from a nice 
warm hut or an overheated train. And they look back 
upon it as an experience to be remembered. Well! of 
course as an experience of cold this can only be compared 
to eating a vanilla ice with hot chocolate cream after an 
excellent dinner at Claridge’s. But in our present state 
we began to look upon minus fifties as a luxury which we 
did not often get. 
‘That evening, for the first time, we discarded our naked 
