The experience gained on this trip led me to believe that the conditions of travel from Cape Wilkes northward as far at least as Cape Defosse would not differ materially from those already encountered, and enabled me to lay my plans with somewhat greater detail. With the light of the December moon I would proceed to Cape Wilkes with such loads as would enable me to travel steadily without double-banking, advance everything to Cape Lawrence on the north side of Rawlings Bay, then go on to Fort Conger with light sledges, determine the condition of the supplies left there that I might know what I could depend upon, and then return to the ship.
In the January moon I would start with my entire party; move supplies from Cape Lawrence to Fort Conger; remain there till the February moon, the light of which would merge into the beginning of the returning daylight; then sledge the supplies for the polar journey to Cape Hecla, and be in readiness to start from there with rested and well-fed dogs by the middle of March.
In pursuance of this plan, the two weeks intervening between the departure of the November moon and the appearance of the December one were busily occupied in repairing and strengthening sledges, and making and overhauling clothing and equipment, to enable us to meet this long and arduous journey in the very midnight of the “Great Night.” During this interval the temperature much of the time was at –51° F. and lower.
December 20th, in the first light of the returning moon, I left the Windward with my doctor, Henson, four Eskimos, and thirty dogs, all that were left of the sixty-odd of four months previous. Thick weather, strong winds rushing out of Kennedy Channel, heavy snow and an abominable ice-foot in Rawlings Bay delayed us, and it was not until the 28th that I had all my supplies assembled at Cape Lawrence, on the north side of Rawlings Bay.
Cape Lawrence presented the advantage of two possible routes by which these latter supplies could be reached from Conger, one through Kennedy Channel, which I was about to follow, and the other via Archer Fiord and overland. In spite of the delays I felt, on the whole, well satisfied with the work up to the end of the year. I had all my supplies half way to Fort Conger, and had comfortable snow igloos erected at Cape Hawkes, Cape Louis Napoleon, Cape Fraser, Cape Norton Shaw, Cape Wilkes, and Cape Lawrence.
December 29th, I started from Cape Lawrence with light sledges for Fort Conger, hoping to make the distance in five days. The first march from Cape Lawrence the ice-foot was fairly good, though an inch or two of efflorescence made the sledges drag as if on sand. The ice-foot grew steadily worse as we advanced, until, after rounding Cape Defosse, it was almost impassable, even for light sledges. The light of the moon lasted only for a few hours out of the twenty-four, and at its best was not sufficient to permit us to select a route on the sea ice.
Just south of Cape Defosse we ate the last of our biscuit, just north of it the last of our beans. On the next march a biting wind swept down the Channel and numbed the Eskimo who had spent the previous winter in the United States, to such an extent, that, to save him, we were obliged to halt just above Cape Cracroft and dig a burrow in a snowdrift. When the storm ceased, I left him with another Eskimo and nine of the poorer dogs, and pushed on to reach Fort Conger.
The moon had left us entirely now, and the ice-foot was utterly impracticable, and we groped and stumbled through the rugged sea ice as far as Cape Baird. Here we slept a few hours in a burrow in the snow, then started across Lady Franklin Bay. In complete darkness and over a chaos of broken and heaved-up ice, we stumbled and fell and groped for eighteen hours, till we climbed upon the ice-foot of the north side. Here a dog was killed for food.
Absence of suitable snow put an igloo out of the question, and a semi-cave under a large cake of ice was so cold that we could stop only long enough to make tea. Here I left a broken sledge and nine exhausted dogs. Just east of us a floe had been driven ashore, and forced up over the ice-foot till its shattered fragments lay a hundred feet up the talus of the bluff. It seemed impassable, but the crack at the edge of the ice-foot allowed us to squeeze through; and soon after we rounded the point, and I was satisfied by the “feel” of the shore, for we could see nothing, that we were at one of the entrances of Discovery Harbour, but which, I could not tell.
Several hours of groping showed that it was the eastern entrance. We had struck the centre of Bellot Island, and at midnight of January 6th we were stumbling through the dilapidated door of Fort Conger. A little remaining oil enabled me, by the light of our sledge cooker, to find the range and the stove in the officers’ quarters, and, after some difficulty, fires were started in both. When this was accomplished, a suspicious “wooden” feeling in the right foot led me to have my kamiks pulled off, and I found, to my annoyance, that both feet were frosted.