THE VOYAGE BEGINS 
IS 
the sea moderated, but the fog continued. At 2 
a. m. on the twenty-eighth our steering-gear gave 
out but fortunately we soon had it repaired. At 
eight o’clock we reefed her and headed towards 
the American shore. The fog still hung low and 
thick but there were occasional gleams of sunshine. 
We were now steaming through Bering Strait, 
across the Arctic Circle, and had twenty-four 
hours of daylight. 
Finally, at four o’clock on the morning of July 
SO, the fog began to lift and by eleven it was fine 
and clear again, with a strong north-northeast 
wind. The Sachs was nowhere to be seen; in fact 
the Karluk did not see her again. We were now 
close to Cape Thompson, steaming towards Point 
Hope. At ten o’clock in the evening we dropped 
anchor off Point Hope, near the Eskimo village. 
The Eskimo in their skin-boats and whaleboats 
came out to meet us, to trade dogs, boats, furs and 
sealskins. About midnight we moved nearer to 
the land, and early in the morning Stefansson went 
ashore to continue the trading and make arrange¬ 
ments for the services of Panyurak and Asatshak, 
two Eskimo boys eighteen or twenty years old, who 
also went by the names of Jerry and Jimmy and 
were good dog-drivers and hunters. Stefansson 
had lived so many years with the Eskimo of Alaska 
and the Mackenzie River region, that he knew them 
