The following week was devoted to the work of preparation for the winter. A reconnoissance of Franklin Pierce bay developed nothing but hare tracks, but Henson came in from Cope’s Bay with a big bear, killed near the head of the bay. This marked the end of the fall campaign, with our winter’s fresh meat supply assured and the Bache-“Island”-Buchanan-“Strait”-“Hayes-Sound” question settled.
The next step was the inauguration of the teaming work, which was to occupy us through the winter. I already had my pemmican and some miscellaneous supplies at Cape Louis Napoleon and two sledge loads of provisions at Cape Fraser. The rapidly disappearing daylight being now too limited for effective travelling, I was obliged to await the appearance of the next moon before starting for a personal reconnoissance of the coast northward. On the 29th I left the ship with Henson and one Eskimo. The soft snow of the last two storms compelled me to break a road for the sledges with snowshoes across Allman Bay and along many portions of the ice-foot, but in spite of this delay we camped at Cape Louis Napoleon after a long march.
The next day we reached Cape Fraser, having been impeded by the tide rising over the ice-foot, and camped at Henson’s farthest, at the beginning of what seemed an impracticable ice-foot. It was the only possible way of advance, however, as the still-moving pack in the channel was entirely impassable. The following day I made a reconnoissance on foot as far as Scoresby Bay, and though the ice-foot was then impracticable for sledges, I was convinced that a good deal of earnest work with picks and shovels, assisted by the levelling effects of the next spring tides, would enable me to get loaded sledges over it during the next moon. From Cape Norton Shaw I could see that by making a detour into Scoresby Bay the heavy pack could be avoided in crossing.
This stretch of ice-foot from Cape Fraser to Cape Norton Shaw is extremely Alpine in character, being an almost continuous succession of huge blocks and masses of bergs and old floes, forced bodily out of the water and up on to the rocks. At Cape John Barrow a large berg had been forced up on the solid rock of the high-tide level.
Returning from my reconnoissance, I camped again at Cape Fraser, building the first of the snow igloos, which I intended should be constructed at convenient intervals the entire distance to Fort Conger. The next three days were occupied in bringing the supplies at Cape Louis Napoleon up to Cape Fraser, and on the 4th of November I returned to the ship.
The time until the return of the next moon was fully occupied in making and repairing sledges, bringing in beef from the cache on Bache Peninsula, and transporting supplies and dog-food to Cape Hawkes, beyond the heavy going of Allman Bay. During much of this time the temperature was in the –40°’s, Fahr.
November 21st, Henson and three Eskimos left with loads, and on the 22d I followed with a party of three to begin the work of the November moon. This work ended just after midnight of December 4th, when the last sledges came in. It left 3,300 pounds of supplies and a quantity of dog-food at Cape Wilkes, on the north side of Richardson Bay. These supplies would have been left at Cape Lawrence had it not been for the desertion and turning back of one of my men, discouraged with the hard work, while crossing Richardson Bay. Knowing it to be essential to prevent any recurrence of the kind, I pushed on to Cape Wilkes, camped and turned in after a twenty-five-hours day, slept three hours, then started with empty sledge, eight picked dogs, and an Eskimo driver, to overtake my man. He was found at Cape Louis Napoleon, and, after receiving a lesson, was taken along with me to the ship.
My party was left with instructions to bring up supplies which the wrecking of sledges had obliged me to cache at various places, assemble all at Cape Wilkes, and then, if I did not return, reconnoitre the ice-foot to Rawlings Bay, and return to the ship.
The distance from Cape Wilkes to the Windward was sixty nautical miles in a straight line (as travelled by me along the ice-foot and across the bays, not less than ninety statute miles); and was covered in 23 hours and 20 minutes, or 21 hours 30 minutes actual travelling time. Temperature during the run –50° F.
Every sledge was more or less smashed in this two weeks’ campaign, and at Cape John Barrow sledges and loads had to be carried on our backs over the ice jams. The mean daily minimum temperature for the thirteen days was –41.2° F., the lowest –50° F., which occurred on four successive days.