WE BEGIN OUR SLEDGING 
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continuing the relays any faults that might come 
in the trail could be easily repaired. In these pre¬ 
liminary journeys, as I have said, the men would 
get accustomed to ice travel and finally the whole 
party, with its supplies, would be safe ashore. We 
were of course handicapped by lack of sufficient 
dogs, and in ice travel and in fact in any polar 
work, dogs are the prime requisites for success; 
man-power for hauling the sledge-loads of supplies 
puts a double burden on the men. 
Those assigned for the first shoregoing party 
were First Mate Anderson, Second Mate Barker 
and Sailors King and Brady. They were to go 
to the island with three sledges and eighteen dogs, 
with Mamen and the two Eskimo men, as a sup¬ 
porting party, to come back with the dogs and two 
of the sledges after they had landed the mate’s 
party on the island. 
The eighteenth was another bad day, with a 
strong northeast gale and blinding snowdrift. 
Some of the men were at work loading the three 
sledges for the mate’s party. Of the others, those 
that could be spared I sent out with pickaxes to 
make a trail towards the land, so that the shore¬ 
going party might have a good start, but the 
weather was so bad that they had to return to camp 
after they had gone two or three miles. They re¬ 
ported seeing bear tracks on the ice and seal in open 
