stefansson-wrangel-09-32-034v

272

THE ADVENTURE OF WRANGEL ISLAND

or Maurer) must have been fully aware of this danger is
shown by my own account of such an occurrence⁸ Often
we camp in the evening without knowing that a gale is
coming, and our choice of a camp site may be casual. But
the evening in question we knew that a storm was upon us
and we selected the safest-looking ice we could find. That
gale was so terrific that when we drew lots to see which
of us would go outdoors and stand a two-hour watch,
Storkerson went out and came back in to us in ten or fifteen minutes to inquire why we had not answered his
shouts. He had been almost pressing his mouth to the
tent while he shouted to us, but we had not heard him
inside the tent because of the roar of the breaking ice and
the howling of the wind. Thereupon we decided, since
it was only taking a chance in any case, we might as well
all be indoors. We did not stand watch and we knew
every moment of the night that it was only chance
whether we lived through. We did live through, but that
was no credit to us. The ice all around us was so broken
up and tumbled about during the night that the footprints of a bear which had been a mile away in the
evening were only about three hundred yards away the
next morning. The ice had not only telescoped to that
extent, but nearly every cake of it had turned somersaults during the night, except fortunately the one that
our tent stood on⁸. The danger on such a night is no
doubt equal to that of a severe battle. That we can
admit this and still maintain that polar exploration is not
very dangerous depends on the fact that is because such gales, like
tropical hurricanes, come only once in several years.

In a two-year diary Knight uses only three or four

"The Friendly Arctic," pp. 167-169.

⁸ This story is both in full, in its proper setting in "The Friendly Arctic", p. 167-169