Monday 3rd February

A blizzard so that Andrew and David were unable to leave. The damaged rigid sledges were brought in and new handlebars fitted. I spent most of the day on maintenance - mending many rents in my windproofs, and putting pedritone on one of my pairs of komagers and on a pair of finneskos and a pair of gloves. Assaults on my beard are increasing in number and intensity; with an 'achtung-ping' it is gently pulled. Was up till nearly 3am, writing up diary.

Tuesday 4th. February

Up late, but in time for ionosphere run, with the news that poor little Leonidas was dead. I went out afterwards and found this to be untrue, but he was clearly in a bad condition and we brought him into the hall where it was warmer. When we saw him in the light, however, we found him in a simply terrible condition - too horrible to describe, and John kindly put an end to his life with a pistol shot. I put him in a coal sack with stones in it and took it right out to Cairn Point and threw it far out to sea. He had been caught for no scientific reason, but merely to help pay for the expedition, though we all signed agreements and the rules of the O U Exploration Club forbid hunting except for food. We have nearly all been against keeping these foxes, and have been as kind as possible to them in the way of feeding them and cleaning their cages out. As well as being sorry for the little fellow, I was extremely fond of him. Death has been severe on the animals of the expedition: Rudo, the generally favourite dog and the other nice ones Markujuk and Isijak, Annadark the most intelligent and friendly of the puppies, and now Leonidas. His death, however, is a relief, for it has been hateful keeping him in captivity all this time. If only I had noticed his condition some days ago we might at least have saved him several days waiting to die. He must have had scurvy.

Wednesday 5th February

After breakfast Andrew and I went along to the man-pemmican dump to see exactly where it lay in the better light, and also to examine again the course along the land up to the dump. Then after the ionosphere run Andrew took me for my first skiing lesson - with komagers and winter bindings. There is ot much to describe about this; it was exactly as I expected - I was rather rigid and clumsy and I fell backwards countless times and forwards only once (a good thing to do apparently). The slope we use is only just beyond the ionosphere hut; the surface was patchy and the wind strong and gusty.

Great cleaning up the bedroom in the afternoon. John made a wonderful spade to replace the broken one, and Brownie made another out of parts of the Benndorf (?). In the evening I acted as timekeeper for John who was continuing his astronomical observations; the timekeeper's job is to judge to the nearest tenth of a second on the chronometer the time at which he makes a short telephone ring following a longer warning ring.

Thursday 6th February

Up a bit earlier than usual this morning as there were a few extra things to be done to get the others off with the minimum of fuss. One of these was the catching of Ayo, but I could find none of the Blacks, though I searched right out to Cairn Point. After breakfast David went north to look for them and I went south.

It was a glorious morning, with a beautiful russet colour above the ice-cap. In England it would suggest a sunrise in 1½ hours time, but here it means 20 days. The wind had died down and the only sound was the lapping of the water on the ice shore. Shouting "Huk, Huk" all the way evoked no response, no echo. I had thought they may have visited the pemmican dump, but not a sign of them. About a quarter of a mile further along, as I was calling, out pranced the Oarks from behind a big boulder. This was encouraging, but they were making no footmarks on account of the hard crust, which was not so hopeful. They came with me for a bit and then came home. All over the place were our old tracks to confuse - and I never have shown any intelligence at all in the way of footprints. There were lots of old footmarks on the ice when I reached it, but they all looked old and nothing could be seen on the ice. I kept along the shore up to the glacier, but saw no tracks, tho' I saw other marks which worried me a lot. I thought of bears and around all was deathly silence; even the sea could not be heard; all I could hear was the continuous ring in my deaf ear. Then I would be startled by a thud, would look round expecting a bear but see nothing; then another thud in the opposite direction, and I realised it was only the ice readjusting itself under pressure. I shouted long and loudly at the glacier, and then turned back. On the way back I saw a very definite bear footmark on a softer patch of snow and wondered what I should do if I saw one now, as I had nothing but a box of matches for defence. Run home? - no, they do a good 20 mph.

On arriving back at the base found David had been equally unsuccessful. Andrew wasn't half as upset as I had expected - he usually is when something is amiss with his dogs - but David was very disappointed and fed up as he had been looking forward to this journey so much. Andrew suggested we should send a bigger party along to the bay ice and he, John, and I were just going off - David had offered to work the ionosphere as I wanted to examine those tracks in the snow again - when in ran Upik followed by all the others except Kungasenak. Andrew and David started off with Brownie after the ionosphere run and now that we knew the way got as far as Cape Upik without any difficulty, and there we saw Kungasenak racing home in the opposite direction, but he did not see us and raced past. I went home after him and found him howling lamentfully for he found the place deserted. After putting a trace on him he came docilely until he got near the team when he raced ahead nearly pulling me off my feet.

Sledging is such fun that I went with them as far as possible before I had to run home to do the met. Intended to ski with John afterwards but couldn't fit my boots into the skis and had to give up for the day. Was rather lazy for the rest of the day, but I was a bit tired after all the running about in the morning on top of only 5 hours in bed. Brownie came back at 8pm; they had reached Karl's hut and found him out. Brownie walked home with Dupelik who was too lame to go on, and had trouble with him on the way back. We brought him into the hall to get warmed and fed on bully soaked in rum; Colonel Sir Dupelik Dupelik is now lying stretched on the floor - drunk!