Proceedings will commence at 11 A. M. (Karluk time); dogs and bookmakers not allowed on the field.

The doctor was umpire and wore a paper rosette. I was the official starter and fired a pistol in the regulation manner.

Mamen won the running long jump and would have won all the other jumps and races if he had entered them. The obstacle race was funny to watch and greatly enjoyed. The contestants started on the ice on the starboard side about amidships. From here they had to go to, and under, the jib-boom from which hung loops of rope; they had to pass through these loops and then under some sledges turned bottom up. Then they had to keep on around the ship to a kind of track which we had dug in a snow-bank running at right angles to the ship; the track was just wide enough for a man to put both feet in and they had to go up the track and down again. This was no easy task and it was a cause for hilarious mirth to watch them trying to pass each other in the narrow path. Then they had to go to the dredge igloo where life-belts had been placed, each marked with its owner’s name. Each man had to find his own life-belt and put it on just as he would wear it if he were called upon to use it. It was pitch dark in the igloo; a man would rush in, pick up a life-belt and rush out again on to the ice to look at the belt in the twilight and see if it were his. It often took a man several trips to find his own. Then they made the final dash to the starting-point and the first man home with his life-belt on, as if for regular use, won the race. Williamson, the second engineer, was the winner.

The Eskimo entered all the sports and even Keruk took part in most of them. I pulled in the tug of war, to make both sides even, and I am proud to say that my side won. We did not have the wrestling-match because it got too dark to see.

It was a fine day and the men wore American clothes and sweaters. For several days before Christmas we had had a severe storm with a high wind which blew the tops of the ice ridges bare of snow and gave the scene the appearance of a ploughed field. On Christmas Eve, however, the wind subsided so that all day long on Christmas Day we had good weather, clear, crisp air, with a temperature of twenty below zero.

Dinner as usual was at half past four. I confess that I felt homesick and thought of other Christmas dinners. It was my fourth Christmas in the Arctic; in 1898 I had been with Peary at Cape D’Urville on the Windward and in 1905 and 1908 at Cape Sheridan with the Roosevelt, but our situation now had far more elements of uncertainty in it than we had felt on those occasions and in addition this time it was I who had the responsibility for the lives and fortunes of every man, woman and child in the party.

We sat down at 4:30 P. M. to a menu laid out and typewritten by McKinlay:

“Such a bustle ensued”
Mixed Pickles Sweet Pickles
Oyster Soup
Lobster
Bear Steak
Ox Tongue
Potatoes Green Peas
Asparagus and Cream Sauce
Mince Pie Plum Pudding
Mixed Nuts
Tea Cake
Strawberries
“God Bless You, Merry Gentlemen;
May Nothing You Dismay!”

Murray produced a cake which had been given in Victoria to cut for this particular occasion and which he had kept carefully secreted. Dinner, which was a great credit to Bob, the cook, was followed by cigars and cigarettes and a concert on the Victrola which had been presented to the ship by Sir Richard McBride. We had records that played both classical and popular music, vocal and instrumental, and we kept this up with singing, to a late hour. Malloch wrote a Christmas letter of many pages to his father, a letter which, alas, was destined never to be delivered.