When Captain Nares looked longingly southward from his ship on the Arctic Ocean, wishing in his heart for word of his assistant, he was not blind to the dangers and difficulties of the journey. The preceding September gallant Lieutenant Rawson with strength and courage had pressed on to Cape Rawson. The precipitous cliffs there made a farther journey by land impossible, while the half-open sea was covered with a shifting, ever-moving ice-pack that made the ocean as impassable for a boat as the ice was for a sledge.
Now in late winter the surface of Robeson Channel was covered by a solid, unmoving pack, but the cold was so intense that it could be endured in the field only by men of iron. Day after day the temperature was eighty degrees below the freezing-point, and even when it should moderate the travelling party must be carefully chosen. Rawson was to go as a passenger, for his ship was the Discovery to which he was now to return. Of all available officers Egerton seemed to have physical and mental qualities that promised well. Naturally the dog driver—for they were to travel with a dog-sledge—would have been Eskimo Frederick. In this emergency Niels Christian Petersen offered his services, claiming that his arctic experiences and powers of endurance fitted him for such a journey. A Dane by birth, his years of service in Greenland had made him a skilled dog driver, and experiences with Dr. Hayes in his expedition of 1860 had made him familiar with field service. A vigorous man of forty years, he seemed the best of the three sledgemen for stanch endurance in such ice and weather.
Nares said in his letter of instructions: "In performing this duty in the present cold weather, with the temperature more than seventy-seven degrees below freezing, great caution is necessary." The date of departure was originally fixed for March 4, 1876, the day on which the retiring sun was first clearly seen above the southern hills at 11.30 A. M. The cold was intense, being one hundred and one degrees below the freezing-point. Whiskey placed on the floe froze hard in a few minutes. Egerton's departure was therefore postponed until the prolonged cold ended eight days later.
Meantime it was clear that such awful temperatures would seriously affect the dogs, who were suffering in short exercise marches from the action of the intense cold on the sharp, sand-like snow particles—all separate. Nares relates that in crossing the trails of the dogs near the ship he "noticed, lying on the floe, numerous frozen pellets of blood which always form between the toes of these animals when working during severely cold weather. The heat of the foot causes the snow to ball; this soon changes into ice, and collecting between the toes cuts into the flesh. On board of the Resolute in 1853 we endeavored to fit our dogs with blanket pads on their feet, but these were found to increase the mischief by first becoming damp and then freezing, when the hardened blanket cut into the sinews at the back of the dogs' legs."[16]
On March 12, 1876, Petersen threw forward the long flexible lash of his Eskimo whip, calling sharply to the waiting dogs, and the party dashed off in a temperature of minus thirty degrees. Petersen, Rawson, and Egerton took turns on the sledge, one riding at a time. The others ran behind the sledge, holding fast each to one of the upstanders.[17]
The dogs ran freely with their very light load of fifty-one pounds per animal, for a full load would be about one hundred pounds for each dog. An hour's travel in a cross wind—filled with the fine drift of sand-like snow so common in the arctic—made them all put on their blinkers (face-protectors against the cold, made of carpeting material) to keep their faces from freezing solid. Every care was taken by the watchful Egerton to guard against frost-bites. Each quarter of an hour he stopped the sledge for a moment, when each sledgeman examined the faces of his comrades. Whenever a whitish spot was seen, the warm palm of the bare hand was placed against the frozen flesh which at once thaws.[18]
As closely as possible Egerton followed the favorite line of travel, along the high ice-foot of the bold shore, inside or outside as conditions required. This name is given to the ice-ledge which forms by gradual accretion on the rocks or earth of the shore. As the main sea ice rises and falls with the tides, the ice necessarily breaks near the shore; the inner, fast-adhering ice is known as the ice-foot, the outer ice as the main pack or the floe. The break is in the form of an irregular fissure called the tidal crack. In the period of the spring tides (when the tides have their greatest ranges) the main pack rises at high tide above the ice-foot, and through the tidal crack flows the sea, covering and filling the irregularities of the ice-foot. This overflow freezes, leaving a smooth, level surface particularly favorable for sledge travel until it is broken up by pressure from the moving pack.
Egerton found the ice-foot in good shape for some distance, but now and then was driven to the main floe of Robeson Channel. The ice of the strait was a mass of broken, irregular blocks, often loose in arrangement and sharp in forms. Its surface and the difficulties of travel may be best likened to marching over great blocks of anthracite coal, save that the ice is bluish-white instead of black.
The lieutenant made a short day's march, going early into camp to avoid overworking the unhardened muscles of man and beast—a sound practice followed by wise arctic sledgemen at the beginning of a long journey.