Setting up the base camp

Saturday August 3rd (cont)

We had breakfast at the usual time and then started on the terrific job of landing all the equipment and food. All the things had to be handled by hand, and after being landed from the boat they had to be taken up the shore for some 40yds over big boulders. In the first place there was so much ice in the harbour that the boat couldn’t get close in, and we had to get some of it out of the way and blast away some of the shelf-ice under the water frozen on to the land. Thus we managed to get the boats in so that only one or two men had to stand in the water. We made a sort of slipway out of driftwood and that helped a bit, for sometimes we could slide things up it instead of carrying them; in the afternoon, however, the tide got very strong and the boats had to land at another place further away. We had some fun with a lot of petrol cans which we nearly lost: these we got from ship to shore by threading a rope through the handles, throwing them overboard and then pull them floating to the shore. In the afternoon tide they got carried behind the point, but after some fun we got them back. It was these 10 gallon petrol cans (160 of them) that were so beastly to handle, as even with two men carrying them and sliding them up the slipway, they seemed very heavy and the narrow handles hurt the hand so much. The crew helped splendidly - mostly in the ship and in the boats, but the first engineer came ashore and carried enormous cases on his back. We worked till a late supper was served on the ship and we slept there that night with the prospect of a lot of big cases the next day, but at least no petrol cans!

Sunday August 4th

Unloading proceeded as before in the morning, and all went well till we got to the really big cases of wireless material at the end. Then an accident occurred, for as we were unloading the last boat-load, in lifting a case from boat to shore, the boat tipped up so much that it began to fill with water, and though all got landed safely three of them got very wet, and Brownie and I spent hours unpacking (without adequate tools) to see what was wet and putting it out to dry. Luckily it was a fine sunny day - all things were all right and the Petter engine was started to drive the generator hoping that warming it in that way would dry it out. The others went on board to lunch and to fetch personal baggage while we were doing this; then “Polar” departed, and by the time our examination was finished she was a speck on the horizon. She was going back to South Gat to fetch the hut and other stores brought up by “Lyngen”. Luckily Sandy discovered in time that some of the medical stores were lost in transit so “Polar” was to proceed to Advent Bay to get them from the hospital. So she won’t be back for a week. Camp was set up by the others: two dome tents - one for

eating in, and Brownie, Karl and a lot of damageable stores in the other - one pyramid tent and three ----- tents. Tonight I was introduced to pemmican at supper, and enjoyed it.

tents erected, dealing with the packing cases