Riiser-Larsen looked the ground over and decided that we must remove the two and a half feet of snow right down to the solid ice and level a track twelve meters wide and four hundred meters long. It was a heartbreaking task to remove this wet summer snow with only our clumsy wooden shovels. It must be thrown clear an additional six meters to either side, so as not to interfere with the wing stretch. After but a few shovelfuls we stood weak and panting gazing disheartened at the labor ahead.
One problem was how to taxi our plane through the wet snow and get it headed in the right direction. We dug down to the blue ice, and now we were confronted with a new difficulty. The moist fog, which came over us immediately, melted the ice as soon as it was exposed. We found that by working our skis underneath the plane we were able finally to get her to turn, but after splitting a pair of skis we decided to take no more chances that way. In desperation we now tried stamping down the snow with our feet and found that it served the purpose admirably. By the end of our first day of shoveling down to the blue ice, we had succeeded in clearing a distance of only forty meters, while with the new method we were able to make one hundred meters per day. We adopted a regular system in stamping down this snow. Each man marked out a square of his own, and it was up to him to stamp down every inch in this area. We figured that at this rate we would have completed our course in five days.
During the first day’s work we saw our first sign of animal life since the seal popped his head up out of the lead where we first landed. Somebody looked up from his work of shoveling snow to see a little auk flying through the fog overhead. It came out of the north and was headed northwest. Next day two weary geese flopped down beside the plane. They must have thought that dark object looming up through the fog in all that expanse of desolate white looked friendly. They seemed an easy mark for Dietrichson, but the rich prize was too much for his nerves and he missed. The two geese ran over the snow a long distance as if they did not seem anxious to take wing again. They too came from the north and disappeared into the northwest. We wondered if there could be land in that direction. It was an interesting speculation.
On the 14th our course was finished. Then Riiser-Larsen paced it again and was surprised to find that instead of four hundred meters it was five hundred. When he informed Amundsen of this fact, the Captain was quick to remark that one million dollars couldn’t buy that extra hundred meters from him, and we all agreed that it was priceless. And so it proved to be.
ELLSWORTH, AMUNDSEN, LARSEN AND FEUCHT WITH THE IMPLEMENTS WITH WHICH THEY MOVED 300 TONS OF ICE
On the evening of the 14th, after our chocolate, and with a southerly wind still blowing—this was a tail-wind on this course and of no help to us—we decided to make a try. But we only bumped along and the plane made no effort to rise. What we needed to get off with was a speed of 100 kilometers per hour. During all our previous attempts to take off, forty kilometers had been the best we could do. On this trial we got up to sixty, and Riiser-Larsen was hopeful. It was characteristic of the man to turn in his seat as we jumped out and remark to me: “I hope you are not disappointed, Ellsworth. We’ll do better next time.” That calm, dispassionate man was ever the embodiment of hope.
LINCOLN ELLSWORTH AFTER THE TRIP
That night it was my watch all night. Around and around the ice-cake I shuffled, with my feet thrust loosely into the ski straps and a rifle slung over my shoulder, on the alert for open water. Then, too, we were always afraid that the ice-cake might break beneath us. It was badly crevassed in places. Many times during that night, on my patrol, I watched Riiser-Larsen draw himself up out of the manhole in the top of the plane to see how the wind was blowing. During the night the wind had shifted from the south and in the morning a light breeze was blowing from the north. This was the second time during our twenty-five days in the ice that the wind had blown from the north. We had landed with a north wind—but were we to get away with a north wind? That was the question. The temperature during the night was -1.5° c. and the snow surface was crisp and hard in the morning. We now were forced to dump everything that we could spare. We left one of our canvas canoes, rifles, cameras, field-glasses; we even discarded sealskin parkas and heavy ski-boots, replacing them with moccasins. All we dare retain was half of our provisions, one canvas canoe, a shotgun and one hundred rounds of ammunition.