106 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE KARLUK 
Travelling over the sea-ice at any time is altogether 
different from land travelling On the sea-ice you 
have to spend a great deal of time looking about for 
good places to make the road for the sledging of 
supplies, for the ice is continually cracking and 
shifting and piling up in fantastic ridges from the 
pressure when the fissures close up, especially as 
near the land as we were, and its surface is so much 
rougher than the crystal levels of the lakes and 
ponds on which the landsman goes skating that 
there can hardly be said to be any comparison. 
For the past week or so, I had noticed that our 
drift was slow, and I felt that as the daylight 
lengthened we should have ample time, long before 
we could drift away from the land, to sledge 
enough supplies ashore to last the party until the 
birds returned and the ice broke up. If we could 
start the men in small parties to relay supplies to 
the island we could get a shore camp established 
where the men could dry out their foot-gear for 
their journey back over the ice to Shipwreck Camp 
for more supplies, especially if we should find 
plenty of driftwood on Wrangell Island, as I 
hoped and expected; we had fuel enough at the 
camp to last a year. The men could erect perma¬ 
nent snow igloos along the way, for relay stations, 
and once the road to the island was made, there 
would be little difficulty in keeping it open and by 
