Sh OK Y 
Sledging Over 
joint, between the face of the ice-foot and 
the pack ice, which rises and falls at every 
tide, a little water is forced up at each rising 
tide,\and, freezing, forms a very narrow, 
tortuo\s ribbon of glare ice, frequently in- 
terrupted, and sometimes lacking entirely 
for several hundred feet. To reach this from 
the ice-foo\the dogs were detached from the 
sledges, the \ledges lowered by lines, then 
the dogs pushed or pulled until they were 
made to jump,\when they were again at- 
tached to the skedge, which moved on to 
make room for another to be lowered, and 
so on, untilall were dgwn. Slowly we worked 
our way along this pyth; dogs and drivers 
shipping and falling \epeatedly, and the 
sledges slewing sideways in a way that 
strained them to the utmyst, which in any 
other type of sledge would Yesult in speedy 
destruction. Some of the iterruptions to 
the continuity of this ribbon\of ice could 
_be smoothed out with the pickaxys; at other 
places it was necessary to makeé\a detour 
out into the ragged pack. Seven hours of 
this kind of work brought us to Cape Uieber, 
and I sent two of my men up over th ice- 
foot parapet to find a suitable snowdrift for 
the construction of igloos. In a little wlilé 
I heard a shout, and saw my two sco 
waving from the top of an ice-foot pinyacle 
a few hundred years ahead. They Aisap- 
peared, and we moved on with the Aledges 
the Polar Pack 405 
until we reached the place where they had 
been. 
Dogs were unhitched and fastgned, as 
usual, and then each of the Eskimgé climbed 
over the ice-foot with his snow kiffe and dis- 
appeared behind the parapet, were the other 
two were already cutting sfow blocks. I 
fastened my dogs, got out/their ration of 
pemmican, cut it up, and f¢d them, standing 
by with whip in hand toee that there was 
no bullying, and that each dog got his share. 
Then I unpacked thé cooker, oil can, and 
kitehen box, passing/them up the ice-foot as 
high as I could rea@h. I did not wait for the 
completion of tke igloo to commence my 
preparations fgr supper, but with a few 
strokes of thé spade excavated a niche in 
the snowbayk, put the cooker in cut of the 
wind, filled the lamp with oil and the boiler 
with ice, placed a few snow blocks around 
it for sill better shelter, and lighted up. By 
the tyme the igloo was completed I had 
eno¥gh water melted for our tea, and supper 
was entirely ready by the time my men had 
.d the dogs; and they lost no time in freeing 
their clothing of snow, and joining me in the 
igloo. 
And so it goes, day after day, till men and 
dogs are worn toa wire edge, and it seems 
as if the world were one great dreary ball 
of hard work and discomfort. ’Tis a dog's 
ife, but a man’s work. 
Supper on the Floe. 
