On the floe itself and arranged to be easily accessible were:

Besides these supplies in the tent and on the floe we had, of course, the coal, clothing, and equipment which we had been placing on the ice through the previous months, consisting, besides ammunition, pemmican, milk, clothing, tea, coffee, sugar, and butter, of these things:

The snow igloo was fifteen feet long and twelve feet wide, with rafters and a canvas roof. The box-house was twenty-five feet long by eighteen feet wide, well banked up all around with snow. We partitioned off one end of the box-house to make the galley and put a big stove in it so that the cook could have a place by himself. We also built another house for the Eskimo. McKinlay afterwards drew a plan of Shipwreck Camp, as we called it, which will show how our dwelling-places and supplies were arranged.

So here we were, like the Swiss Family Robinson, well equipped for comfortable living, waiting until the return of the sun should give us daylight enough for ice travel, which was altogether too exacting and dangerous to attempt in the dark. I did not consider it wise to use up the energy of men and dogs when they were still unaccustomed to travelling over the sea-ice and before there was light enough to make their work effective.

The place where the ship had gone down was frozen over. The ice had simply opened for a while and then closed up again, and young ice had formed in the opening.

Plan of Shipwreck Camp