CHAPTER VI 
stefansson’s departure 
For several days the ship had remained station¬ 
ary,—that is, the ice had shown no signs of move¬ 
ment, and the weather had been generally calm. 
The Eskimo were becoming more successful in 
shooting seal for our fresh meat supply, which we 
kept in a kind of natural refrigerator that we had 
made by scooping out a hole in the ice not far from 
the ship. With the ship now apparently securely 
fixed for the winter, however, Stefansson came to 
the conclusion that it would be a good thing for 
some one to go ashore and get game. 
He talked the matter over with me at some 
length on September 18. Kerdrillo was the only 
one of the Eskimo who had had any experience 
at deer-hunting and he knew a good deal about 
the country to the back of us. In fact he was 
more familiar with land hunting than with ice- 
travel. I had shot plenty of caribou in Grant Land 
and Ellesmere Land, as well as in Newfoundland 
and elsewhere, and volunteered to go, but Stefans¬ 
son was the only one on board who not only knew 
how to hunt caribou but also was fully acquainted 
34 
