The winter winds of the Far North are almost unimaginable by any one who has never experienced them. Our winter at Cape Sheridan this last time was less severe than the winter of 1905-06, but we had several storms that reminded us of old times. The north and northwest winds sweeping down along the coast are the coldest; but for absolutely insane fury the winds from the south and the southwest, falling off the highland of the coast with almost the impact of a wall of water, are unsurpassed anywhere else in the arctic regions.
Sometimes these storms come on gradually, the wind from the northwest steadily increasing in force and swinging through the west to the southwest, gathering fury with every hour, until the snow is picked up bodily from the land and the ice-foot and carried in blinding, horizontal sheets across the ship. On deck it is impossible to stand or move, except in the shelter of the rail, and so blinding is the cataract of snow that the lamps, powerful as are their reflectors, are absolutely indistinguishable ten feet away.
When a party in the field is overtaken by a storm, they have to stay in the snow igloo until the fury is over. If there is no igloo near them, they build one just as quickly as they can when they see the storm approaching, or, if there is not time for that, they have to make a dugout in a snow bank.
Thursday, the 26th of November, was proclaimed to be Thanksgiving Day in Grant Land. For dinner we had soup, macaroni and cheese, and mince pie made of musk-ox meat. During the December moon Captain Bartlett, with two Eskimos, two sledges, and twelve dogs, went out to scour the region between the ship and Lake Hazen for game. Henson, with similar equipment, went to Clements Markham Inlet. Borup, with seven Eskimos, seven sledges, and forty-two dogs, set out for Cape Colan and Cape Columbia. Dr. Goodsell started at the same time with three Eskimos, two sledges, and twelve dogs, to hunt in the region from Black Cliffs Bay to James Ross Bay. The parties were to use the regular arctic ration of tea, pemmican, and biscuit, unless they found game, in which case they were to use fresh meat for both men and dogs. In addition to the hunting, supplies for the spring sledge work were to be moved from one cache to another along the coast.
To give variety to the work, the men who remained with the ship during one moon went into the field the next. The ship's men, engineers and sailors, seldom went on hunting trips but remained with the ship, attending to their regular duties and sometimes helping with the work of equipment.
I had in my cabin a good arctic library—absolutely complete as regards the work of later years. This included Abruzzi's "On the Polar Star in the Arctic Sea," Nansen's "Farthest North," Nares' "Voyage to the Polar Sea," Markham's two volumes on arctic explorations, the narratives of Greely, Hall, Hayes, Kane, Inglefield—in fact, all the stories of the navigators of the Smith Sound region, as well as those who have attempted the Pole from other directions, such as the Austrian expedition under Payer and Weyprecht, Koldewey's East Greenland expedition, and so forth.
Then, in antarctic literature I had Captain Scott's two magnificent volumes, "The Voyage of the Discovery," Borchgrevink's "The Southern Cross Expedition to the Antarctic," Nordenskjöld's "Antarctica," the "Antarctica" of Balch, and Carl Fricker's "The Antarctic Regions," as well as Hugh Robert Mills' "Siege of the South Pole."
The members of the expedition used to borrow these books, one at a time, and I think that before the winter was over they all knew pretty well what had been done by other men in this field.
Every week or ten days throughout the winter we had to remove from our cabins the ice caused by the condensation of the moist air where it came in contact with the cold outer walls. Behind every article of furniture near the outer wall the ice would form, and we used to chop it out from under our bunks by the pailful.
The books were always placed far forward on the shelves, because if a book were pushed back it would freeze solid to the wall. Then, if a warmer day came, or a fire was built in the cabin, the ice would melt, the water would run down and the leaves of the book would mold.