These little particles of ice would fall upon the hard snow, which
otherwise would have been good sledging, and remain separated from each
other so that you could brush them up like sand, and were, in fact,
nearly as hard as sand, so that it was almost impossible to drag the
sledges along. The thermometer would frequently register -50 degrees
and -60 degrees when we were moving with a strong wind blowing directly
in our faces. Such travelling as this is simply terrible, and it is
astonishing that we were able to do it without encountering any severe
frost-bites. Indeed, we travelled one day with the thermometer -69
degrees, and, a gale blowing at this time, both white men and Inuits
were more or less frost-bitten, but merely the little nippings of nose,
cheeks, and wrists that one soon gets accustomed to in this country. As
Lieutenant Schwatka says, it is like almost all other dangers that you
hear and read about, they seem to dwindle when you meet them boldly
face to face. A battle always seems more terrible to those in the rear
than to those in the front lines.
It was a noticeable fact that our course up the river was considerably
east of south, instead of west, as mapped upon the Admiralty chart.
There could be no mistake in regard to this when we could daily see the
sun rise and set on the right of our general line of travel.
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