stefansson-wrangel-09-32-077r

THE REPORT OF CAPTAIN JOSEPH BERNARD 353

would be useless, and even dangerous to attempt to go farther along
that coast.

After a hard struggle with the ice—we had to pull the vessel with
tackles, cut our way through the ice for a mile—we got back to
open water south of the Cape and made our way east. We experi-
enced much difficulty around Cape Onman. After we got through
we landed on Koliutchin Island. This island is quite lofty, and on
a clear day one can see a great distance, in every direction. No
water could be seen except along the coast to the east. Looking
north and northwest it appeared to be a solid pack, while to the
northeast the ice seemed to be broken up, although there was no
open lead. I then decided to come back and wait until I could
find some lead to enter the ice and see if I could not get across to
the “Outside Passage.”

On September 4th we reached Cape Serdze, in the evening, and
from the top of the Cape we could see an open lead, leading north
through the broken ice. I decided to wait until morning and if
weather conditions permitted would enter this lead and see if it
were possible to get across the belt of ice.

At daylight, on the morning of September 5th, we entered what
had been the open lead the night before, but was now covered with
ice, as much as 1" thick in places, still we were able to make fairly
good time, as the wind was to the South and we used sails, as well
as the engine. We soon found that the young ice was cutting
into the plank, above the iron sheeting, pretty badly and we tied up
to an ice field and put on some iron sheeting and in a couple of
hours were able to continue our outbound journey. By dark we
had made a little over forty miles. Then on account of fog, and
the ice being pretty tight, we tied up.

The morning of the 6th was bright and clear and we started on
our way at daylight. By two o’clock we came into a fairly wide
open lead, possibly about five miles wide. There was no ice to be
seen to the East, but across the lead on the north side, to the
northwest, there was a solid arctic pack of very much thicker ice
than we had been going through. Our position then was fifty-five
miles west of Cape Serdze. There were leads of open water inside
of the main arctic pack and the shore ice lying to the west—
northwest—but they were very narrow and I did not consider it
safe to enter those leads with a heavy pack of ice on either side of