June 23rd. Monday. We were steaming in tolerably open water when I came on deck. The Arctic was ahead. Birds were numerous—some geese with hundreds of eider and guillemot. After breakfast we saw land ahead, that is, to the west, and during the afternoon were within a mile or so of it,—Princess Charlotte's Monument. There was much loose ice to the south and a straight floe edge to the north of us, and to this we hooked on two hundred yards to the east of the Arctic. We did not care to go closer to the rocks lest the ice should come in on us. I saw Dr. Crawford take the Arctic's launch and go ashore to look for eggs. Returning a couple of hours after, steam went down and the Arctic was obliged to unhook and go after them. It appeared that the boiler was too exposed and the cold so intense that they simply could not keep steam up. The launch had been keeping under the lee of the floe as much as possible, and when steam went down she began to drift away from this into rough water. For a few minutes things looked bad for her, as she was a wretched sea boat with her heavy boiler and engine. During the night we unhooked and worked our way towards the south.
June 24th. Tuesday. Day fine, but blowing from the south. A lot of ice on the coast, and to the south and east all was white. We were now where whales might be seen and preparations were made. Foregoers and lines were tested, harpoons examined, guns cleaned and fired to make sure they would work, lines coiled away in boats, and every one was on the lookout. We never heard of Disco or Cape York now. All was Lancaster Sound and Pond's Bay, with weird tales of cold days spent rock-nosing off Cape Kater and in Cumberland Gulf. All these preparations did not hurry matters in the least. The king of this country decided that we should remain for a day or two where we were, and so in the evening we were hooked on almost where the morning found us.
June 25th. Wednesday. About noon the wind died down and the currents, setting south, took the ice off the coast so that we were able to crawl along a little; but a few hours later we made fast to the land floe off Cape Horsburgh, as the pack was drifting in again. We saw many walrus here, but did not like to spend time at them, as we wanted to be the first ship up the Sound. At tea time we moved along a little further and by bedtime we tied up again. Some of our tanks were pumped out and cleaned, ready for the anticipated oil. There were a number of seals in sight, but they were left alone, as the time was precious.
June 26th. Thursday. As the ship was hard and fast I took a rifle and went after some seals which were to be seen a mile away. Before going very far I found myself climbing over hummocks of old ice which had drifted down Jones Sound, and it was very difficult walking. On one side of a hummock the snow would be perfectly smooth and frozen hard, while on the other side it would be so soft that one at once went through the surface and had to clamber along in several feet of it.
Again, one would come to a perfectly rotten and honeycombed piece of ice underneath which there was a foot or two of water, and below the water could be seen the solid old floe; this made walking so difficult that I returned to the ship without getting a shot.
June 27th and 28th were uneventful. We moved little, and Cape Horsburgh was in sight all the time, but on:
June 29th, Sunday, we had a good lead along the shore floe and were steaming fast through it when I came on deck. A number of bears were seen about noon, but the wind was from the south and the ice was coming in, so we hurried along. As there were a number of them, they were probably attracted by some dead beast.