[Our allowance of provisions for each man per day was as follows:]
Biscuit 10 ounces.
Pemmican 9 ounces.
Sweetened Cocoa Powder 1 ounce, to make one pint.
Rum 1 gill.
Tobacco 3 ounces per week.
Our fuel consisted entirely of spirits of wine, of which two pints formed our daily allowance, the cocoa being cooked in an iron boiler over a shallow iron lamp, with seven wicks; a simple apparatus, which answered our purpose remarkably well. We usually found one pint of the spirits of wine sufficient for preparing our breakfast, that is, for heating twenty-eight pints of water, though it always commenced from the temperature of 32°. If the weather was calm and fair, this quantity of fuel brought it to the boiling point in about an hour and a quarter; but more generally the wicks began to go out before it had reached. 200°. This, however, made a very comfortable meal to persons situated as we were. Such, with very little variation, was our regular routine during the whole of this excursion.
We set off on our first journey over the ice at ten P.M. on the 24th, Table Island bearing S.S.W., and a fresh breeze blowing from W.S.W., with thick fog, which afterward changed to rain. The bags of pemmican were placed upon the sledges, and the bread in the boats, with the intention of securing the latter from wet; but this plan we were soon obliged to relinquish. We now commenced upon very slow and laborious travelling, the pieces of ice being of small extent and very rugged, obliging us to make three journeys, and sometimes four, with the boats and baggage, and to launch several times across narrow pools of water. We stopped to dine at five A.M. on the 25th, having made, by our log (which we kept very carefully, marking the courses by compass, and estimating the distances), about two miles and a half of northing; and, again setting forward, proceeded till eleven A.M., when we halted to rest; our latitude, by observation at noon, being 81° 15' 13".
Setting out again at half past nine in the evening, we found our way to lie over nothing but small, loose, rugged masses of ice, separated by little pools of water, obliging us constantly to launch and haul up the boats, each of which operations required them to be unloaded, and occupied nearly a quarter of an hour. It came on to rain very hard on the morning of the 26th; and, finding we were making very little progress (having advanced not more than half a mile in four hours), and that our clothes would be soon wet through, we halted at half past one, and took shelter under the awnings. The weather improving at six o'clock, we again moved forward, and travelled till a quarter past eleven, when we hauled the boats upon the only tolerably large floe-piece in sight. The rain had very much increased the quantity of water lying upon the ice, of which nearly half the surface was now covered with numberless little ponds of various shapes and extent. It is a remarkable fact, that we had already experienced, in the course of this summer, more rain than during the whole of seven previous summers taken together, though passed in latitudes from 7° to 15° lower than this. A great deal of the ice over which we passed to-day presented a very curious appearance and structure, being composed, on its upper surface, of numberless irregular, needle-like crystals, placed vertically, and nearly close together; their length varying, in different pieces of ice, from five to ten inches, and their breadth in the middle about half an inch, but pointed at both ends. The upper surface of ice having this structure sometimes looks like greenish velvet; a vertical section of it, which frequently occurs at the margin of floes, resembles, while it remains compact, the most beautiful satin-spar, and asbestos when falling to pieces. At this early part of the season, this kind of ice afforded pretty firm footing; but, as the summer advanced, the needles became more loose and moveable, rendering it extremely fatiguing to walk over them, besides cutting our boots and feet, on which account the men called them "penknives."
We pursued our journey at half past nine P.M., with the wind at N.E., and thick weather, the ice being so much in motion as to make it very dangerous to cross in loaded boats, the masses being all very small. On this account we halted at midnight, having waded three quarters of a mile through water from two to five inches deep upon the ice. The thermometer was at 33°.
At seven A.M. on the 28th, we came to a floe covered with high and rugged hummocks, which opposed a formidable obstacle to our progress, occurring in two or three successive tiers, so that we had no sooner crossed one than another presented itself. Over one of these we hauled the boats with extreme difficulty by a "standing pull," and the weather being then so thick that we could see no pass across the next tier, we were obliged to stop at nine A.M. While performing this laborious work, which required the boats to be got up and down places almost perpendicular, James Parker, my coxswain, received a severe contusion in his back, by the boat falling upon him from a hummock, and the boats were constantly subject to very heavy blows, but sustained no damage.[[021]] The weather continued very foggy during the day, but a small lane of water opening out at no great distance from the margin of the floe, we launched the boats at eight in the evening among loose drift-ice, and, after some time, landed on a small floe to the eastward, the only one in sight, with the hope of its leading to the northward. It proved so rugged that we were obliged to make three, and sometimes four journeys with the boats and provisions, and this by a very circuitous route; so that the road, by which we made a mile of northing, was full a mile and a half in length, and over this we had to travel at least five, and sometimes seven times. Thus, when we halted to dine at two A.M., after six hours' severe toil, and much risk to the men and boats, we had only accomplished about a mile and a quarter in a N.N.E. direction. After dining we proceeded again till half past six, and then halted, very much fatigued with our day's work, and having made two miles and a half of northing. We were here in latitude, by account, 81° 23", and in longitude, by the chronometers, 21° 32' 34" E., in which situation the variation of the magnetic needle was observed to be 15° 31' westerly. We now enjoyed the first sunshine since our entering the ice, and a great enjoyment it was, after so much thick and wet weather. We rose at half past four P.M., in the hopes of pursuing our journey; but, after hauling the boats to the edge of the floe, found such a quantity of loose, rugged ice to the northward of us, that there was no possibility, for the present, of getting across or through it. Observing a small opening at 10.30 P.M., we launched the boats, and hauled them across several pieces of ice, some of them being very light and much decayed. Our latitude, by the sun's meridian altitude at midnight, was 81° 23'; so that we had made only eight miles of northing since our last observation at noon on the 25th.
The 30th commenced with snowy and inclement weather, which soon rendered the atmosphere so thick that we could no longer see our way, obliging us to halt till two P.M., when we crossed several small pools with great labour and loss of time. We had generally very light ice this day, with some heavy, rugged pieces intermixed; and, when hauling across these, we had sometimes to cut with axes a passage for the boats among the hummocks. We also dragged them through a great many pools of fresh water, to avoid the necessity of going round them. The wind freshening up from the S.S.W., we afterward found the ice gradually more and more open, so that, in the course of the day, we made by rowing, though by a very winding channel, five miles of northing; but were again stopped by the ice soon after midnight, and obliged to haul up on the first mass that we could gain, the ice having so much motion that we narrowly escaped being "nipped." We set out at 11.30 A.M. on the 1st July, the wind still fresh from the S.W., and some snow falling: but it was more than an hour before we could get away from the small pieces of ice on which we slept, the masses beyond being so broken up and so much in motion, that we could not, at first, venture to launch the boats. Our latitude, observed at noon, was 81° 30' 41". After crossing several pieces, we at length got into a good "lead" of water, four or five miles in length; two or three of which, as on the preceding day, occurred under the lee of a floe, being the second we had yet seen that deserved that name. We then passed over four or five small floes, and across the pools of water that lay between them. The ice was now less broken up, and sometimes tolerably level; but from six to eighteen inches of soft snow lay upon it in every part, making the travelling very fatiguing, and obliging us to make at least two, and sometimes three, journeys with our loads. We now found it absolutely necessary to lighten the boat as much as possible, by putting the bread-bags on the sledges, on account of the "runners" of the boats sinking so much deeper into the snow; but our bread ran a great risk of being wetted by this plan.
We halted at eleven P.M. on the 1st, having traversed from ten to eleven miles, and made good, by our account, seven and half in a N.b.W. direction. We again set forward at ten A.M. on the 2d, the weather being calm, and the sun oppressively warm, though with a thick fog. The temperature in the shade was 35° at noon, and only 47° in the sun; but this, together with the glare from the snow, produced so painful a sensation in most of our eyes, as to make it necessary to halt at one P.M., to avoid being blinded. We therefore took advantage of this warm weather to let the men wash themselves, and mend and dry their clothes, and then set out again at half past three. The snow was, however, so soft as to take us up to our knees at almost every other step, and frequently still deeper; so that we were sometimes five minutes together in moving a single empty boat, with all our united strength. It being impossible to proceed under these circumstances, I determined to fall into our night-travelling again, from which we had of late insensibly deviated. We therefore halted at half past five, the weather being now very clear and warm, and many of the people's eyes beginning to fail. We did not set out again till after midnight, with the intention of giving the snow time to harden after so warm a day; but we found it still so soft as to make the travelling very fatiguing. Our way lay at first across a number of loose pieces, most of which were from five to twenty yards apart, or just sufficiently separated to give us all the labour of launching and hauling up the boats, without the advantage of making any progress by water; while we crossed, in other instances, from mass to mass, by laying the boats over as bridges, by which the men and the baggage passed. By these means, we at length reached a floe about a mile in length, in a northern direction; but it would be difficult to convey an adequate idea of the labour required to traverse it. The average depth of snow upon the level parts was about five inches, under which lay water four or five inches deep; but, the moment we approached a hummock, the depth to which we sank increased to three feet or more, rendering it difficult at times to obtain sufficient footing for one leg to enable us to extricate the other. The pools of fresh water had now also become very large, some of them being a quarter of a mile in length, and their depth above our knees. Through these we were prevented taking the sledges, for fear of wetting all our provisions; but we preferred transporting the boats across them, notwithstanding the severe cold of the snow-water, the bottom being harder for the "runners" to slide upon. On this kind of road we were, in one instance, above two hours in proceeding a distance of one hundred yards.
We halted at half past six A.M. to dine; and to empty our boots and wring our stockings, which, to our feelings, was almost like putting on dry ones; and again set out in an hour, getting at length into a "lane" of water a mile and a quarter long, in a N.N.E. direction. We halted for the night at half an hour before midnight, the people being almost exhausted with a laborious day's work, and our distance made good to the northward not exceeding two miles and a quarter. We allowed ourselves this night a hot supper, consisting of a pint of soup per man, made of an ounce of pemmican each, and eight or ten birds, which we had killed in the course of the last week; and this was a luxury which persons thus situated could perhaps alone duly appreciate.