AFTER a brief rest our explorers continued their voyage. They warped the vessel round the cape near which they found shelter, into a bay which opened to the north and west. Along the shore of this bay they toiled for several days and reached its head. It seemed impossible to go farther, for the ice was already thick and the winter at hand. A majority of the officers, in view of these facts, advised a return south. But Dr. Kane thought they might winter where they were, or further north if the vessel could be pushed through the ice, and their explorations be made with dog-sledges. To learn more fully the practicability of his view he planned a boat excursion. While this was in contemplation an incident came near ending all further progress of the expedition. The brig grounded in the night, and was left suddenly by the receding tide on her beam ends. The stove in the cabin, which was full of burning coal, upset and put the cabin in a blaze. It was choked by a pilot-cloth overcoat until water could be brought. No other harm was done than the loss of the coat and a big scare.
About the first of September the doctor and seven volunteers started in the boat "Forlorn Hope" to see the more northern shore-line. The boat was abandoned at the end of twenty-four hours, all the water having turned to ice, and the party tramped many a weary mile, carrying their food and a few other necessary things. Dr. Kane attained an elevation of eleven hundred feet, from which, with his telescope, he looked north beyond the eightieth degree of latitude, and through a wide extent of country east and west. From this observation he decided that sledging with dogs into and beyond this region was practicable. This had seemed doubtful before. He therefore returned with the decision to put the "Advance" into winter-quarters immediately.
A few facts interesting to the scientific were learned on this excursion. A skeleton of a musk ox was found, showing they had been, at no distant time, visitors to this coast. Additions were made to their flowering plants, and up to this date twenty-two varieties had been found.
The brig was now drawn in between two islands, and the mooring lines carried out. The explorers were in a sheltered, and, as to the ice, safe winter home. They called it Rensselaer Harbor. Near them an iceberg had anchored as if to watch their movements. A fresh-water pond on the upland promised them its precious treasure if they would cut for it. An island a few rods distant they named Butler Island, and on this they built a store-house. A canal was cut from the brig to this island, and kept open by renewed cutting every morning. They then run the boat through this canal, thus transferring the stores from the hold to the store-house.
While one party was thus engaged, others were equally busy in other directions. The scientific corps selected a small island which they called Fern Rock, and put up a rude "observatory," from which not only the stars were to be watched, but the weather, the meteors, and the electrical currents were to be noted.
While this outside work was going on Dr. Kane was taxing his ingenuity to arrange the brig, now made roomy by the removal of the stores, so as to have it combine the greatest convenience, warmth, and healthfulness. A roof was put over the upper deck, which was then made to answer for a promenade deck for pleasure and health.
Even the wolfish Esquimo dogs were remembered in this general planning. A nice dog house, cozy and near, was made for them on Butler Island. But the dogs had notions of their own about their quarters. Though so savage at all times as to be willing to eat their masters if not kept in abject fear, yet they refused to sleep out of the sound of their voices. They would leave their comfortable quarters on the island and huddle together in the snow, exposed to the severest cold, to be within the sound of human voices. So they had to be indulged with kennels on deck.
While these matters were being attended to the hunters scoured the country to learn what the prospect was for game. They extended their excursions ninety miles, and returned with a report not very encouraging. They saw a few reindeer, and numerous hares and rabbits. It was plain that hunting would not make large returns.
The winter came on with its shroud of darkness. On the tenth of September the sun made but a short circuit above the horizon before it disappeared again. In one month it would cease to show its disk above the surrounding hills; then would come a midday twilight for a few days, followed by nearly a hundred days of darkness in which no man could work. Even now, at noon, the stars glowed brightly in the heavens, though but few of them were the familiar stars of the home sky.
While the work of which we have spoken was going on Dr. Kane's thoughts were much upon the necessity of establishing, before the winter nights fully set in, provision depots at given distances northward for at least sixty miles. These would be necessary for a good start in the early spring of a dog-sledge journey North Poleward. For the spring work the Newfoundland dogs, of which he had ten, were in daily training. Harnessed to a small, strong, beautifully made sledge called "Little Willie," the doctor drove his team around the brig in gallant style. These Newfoundlanders were a dependence for heavy draught. The Esquimo dogs were in reserve for the long, perilous raids of the earnest exploration into darkness and over hummocks.