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“We returned to the shelter of the pack, unloaded, and hauled the boats up on a floeberg at 3:30 P.M. There we abandoned one week’s supply of food. While we pitched the tents and secured the boats, Green raided the abandoned stores. Presently he produced the best and largest meal we had eaten for five months.”

“But it was a sight we did not like, for the floes were thudding against our floeberg with increasing violence. Our temporary home was being swept away at an unpleasantly rapid rate.”

Nares, in the flag-ship Alert, chose the dangerous and exposed winter quarters at Floeberg Beach, an open roadstead of the ice-clad Arctic Ocean at the northern entrance of Robeson Channel.

The squadron was commanded by Captain Sir George Nares, R.N., of Challenger fame, whose flag-ship, the Alert, wintered at Floeberg Beach, exposed to the full force of the mighty pack of the frozen Arctic Ocean.

We pitched camp on a floeberg of unusual height; about us were many big hummocks, and to the lee of these banks of hardened snow.