Another day, the sixth of the interminable gale. Will it never end? The wind and drift continue with unabated violence. For some three hours to-day, I pushed, and butted, and at times almost crawled on hands and knees, back and forth across the small floe on which we are camped.
This partly for exercise, partly because I could no longer keep quiet, partly from a desire to determine with certainty, whether, if I were made of sterner stuff, I might not be travelling. I am perfectly satisfied now. No party could travel in this gale, not because of the cold, though that is not slight, but because of the physical impossibility. To face the gale would quickly wear out the strongest man living, even if it were possible to expose the face directly for more than an instant to the cutting drift. I am also satisfied that the effect of the storm will not be to make the travelling (if it ever clears) worse; or to obliterate our trail from the “big lead” here.
All the new snow, and some of the old is being scoured off the floes and deposited in the pressure ridges, and the tracks of my sledges, dogs and men are left in relief. Six years ago to-day I left Conger for the Greenland coast.
At last the unprecedented gale abated, or at any rate temporarily suspended, enough for me to get things moving.
After midnight the violence of the wind moderated, and in the morning the sun was shining, though a considerable drift was still running, and a heavy bank of drift lay all around the horizon.
Gradually this subsided, and I was able to get some meridian observations with the transit. The drift made the use of artificial horizon impracticable. These observations gave our latitude 85° 12′, and our longitude but slightly west of the ship at Sheridan.
I immediately started Henson off with two of his men, Panikpah and Pewahtoo, to push ahead, and at the same time sent off his other man Sipsu, and one of my men, Ahngodoblaho, to meet Marvin (if he was north of the “big lead”), and to bring up the supplies left in the small cache this side the lead if they did not meet him. As I anticipated after the previous day’s study of the matter, the storm had improved the going. On the old floes where it had not scoured the snow off entirely, it had packed it harder, and the patches of rough ice, and the pressure ridges were now filled with snow hammered in until it would bear a mule. Our tracks were much more distinct than they were six days before. To the north of us there was a large floe stretching as far as could be seen.
It was a day of April weather, reminding me very much of the ice-cap; blue sky with delicate “mare’s tail” clouds, then banks of fog, flurries of snow, and blue sky again, with a continuous light W. S. W. wind carrying a low drift along the surface. For several hours there was a fog bank, probably caused by open leads.
It was well that I had discounted the loss of my provisions at the lead. Soon after midnight, my two men returned reporting that they had lost the trail beyond the first igloo south of where we were, and had been stopped by open water and completely shattered ice extending as far as they could see from the highest pinnacles.
It was evident that I could no longer count in the slightest degree upon my supporting parties, and that whatever was to be done now, must be done with the party, the equipment, the supplies which I had with me. Unfortunately the party was larger than it need be (eight of us in all), and the supplies much smaller than I could have wished. I gave my men their supper and turned over for another nap while they obtained a few hours’ sleep. I had no occasion to think or worry, I knew already what I should do in this contingency.