KATAKTOVICK AND I START 
175 
fact that the water here was deep near the shore 
great pieces of ice had been pressed in, with high 
rafters, between which were masses of soft, deep 
snow. We spent some time trying to find a way 
through and to make a road for the sledge to travel 
over but finally decided that too many hours would 
thus be consumed and kept on to the westward, 
still following the shore-line. That night, with the 
darkness upon us, we built our igloo about a mile 
to the westward of Hunt Point. We had been on 
the march since early morning, but had accomplished 
little, excepting to find out that we should be un¬ 
able to make a trail out over the ice at this point. 
We broke camp the next day at early dawn. 
The wind was now coming from the east and the 
drifting snow whirled about us in clouds. Along 
here it was a toss-up whether it would be better to 
go along the sea-ice or travel on the land; the ice 
was piled in on the shore and so badly raftered that 
we had to use the pickaxe constantly, besides being 
drifted deep with soft snow, in which the dogs and 
sledge made heavy going and we ourselves on our 
snowshoes had much ado to pick our way along, 
and yet when we tried the land we found that the 
wind had blown the rocks bare of snow, which made 
hard going for the sledge. The dogs were not 
working so well, and when we made our igloo at 
dark we had finished a day’s hard work that had 
