stefansson-wrangel-09-25-004-012

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please we would come to where the trail ended abrubtly along a line of
ice movement and after long search we might find it two or three miles to
one side or the other. Usually it was found to the left, for the farther away
from Wrangell Island the ice was faster it was drifting to the west. Our
progress was pretty slow, for in addition to searching for the trail we had
to chop a road through pressure ridges frequently with the pickaxes. Our
reason for trying to follow the old trail was to see if we could find any
of the depots. When we arrived in a locality where we thought one of the
depots ought to be, we stopped for several hours or perhaps over-night to
make a search. I did not expect to find any of them but we did find one
which by good luck was in the middle of an old ice floe that had escaped
crushing.

The second morning out I shot a small bear, but the rest
of the boys would not eat it as they weren't hungry ehough yet, so I fed it
to the dogs. This was better for them than the pemmican ration.

The morning when we left camp the wind was freshening from
the northeast. It gradually increased to a blizzard and kept up for five or
six days. In the morning of the sixth day we arrived at the pressed-up
ice where the edge of the landfast floe meets the moving pack. This proved
to be about forty miles from Wrangell Island. The ice was crushing and
tumbling so that we just had to wait for it to stop. I picked out what
I thought was a good cake for camping. I then went to have a better look
at the ridge and found the ice in a frightful condition. I got on top of
a small pinnacle which was not moving just then and found the ridge extended
about three and a half miles through such ice as I had never before seen in
my twenty-five years' knowledge of the arctic sea. Nothing could be done
till the crushing stopped. I had grave fears for the Doctor's and the