stefansson-wrangel-09-25-007-012

12.

which they intended to carry with them to use if they had to camp
where there was insufficient snow for building a snowhouse. The
next day, "Crawford working on the tent and I grought the sled
indoors and made several repairs on it. Hope to finish it to-
morrow. Snowing hard, so the trappers stayed in camp to-day."
Before that time the diary tells us almost every day that two
or three of the boys were out tending traps. Sometimes they
came in with foxes and sometimes only with the reports of bear
tracks and fox tracks seen.

On December 27th, "The sled and tent in good shape
and all that is left for us to do is to get our outfit together".

January 4th we have the next mention of the trip.
"I have been busy packing up today as we hope to get away in a
day or two”. January 7, "Crawford and I spent the day getting
ready, loading the sled, getting things together, etc. Maurer and
Galle to their traps. Maurer got a fox and saw several tracks."

Then we have abruptly under date of January 7th,
"At 1 P.M. Crawford and I started over fine going and making good
time. We traveled south an hour and hit broken-up young ice with
soft snow in between. The moon is about one-quarter on the wane
and it was slightly misty. After numerous tip-overs because of
increasing darkness, we camped. Our 1oad is rather heavy and the
dogs soft from inaction. We lost one of our two ice picks and a
pot lid. Rather a bad start."