Friday May 29th

For some time now the arrangement has been that we get up in time for the ionosphere run at 10.30, i.e. breakfast about 10 o'clock and I run out in pyjamas at 7a.m. to do the met. readings, and then back to bed till it's time to get up. Dull, windy and drifting as usual again in the morning and temperature down to 22℉, but as usual the snow bunting was singing on a boulder half way between the ionosphere hut and the cliffs. It's such a pretty song, and is so cheering on the worst of days.

Karl's hand is better, but afraid that complaints might begin again, I fled after lunch to the Advanced Base to planetable. Almost every day all the trig. points are in clouds, and the only thing is to be in the right place ready for when it clears for a few hours. So set off after lunch accompanied by Brownie and puppies. Half way across the bay he turned to return by another route, taking the puppies with him. A little later I saw three reindeer following him about a mile behind. It snowed at times and I began to get fed up with this route when suddenly I heard a "crwock, crwock" and looking round saw two birds flying and settled some 15 yds away, not a bit scared. They were ptarmigan and knowing that specimens were wanted, I seized Sandy's one-barrelled gun: one was pure white (winter plumage) and the other white and golden-brown (breeding plumage). I moved round so as to get them both with one shot and fired. The white one was only a bit damaged and like a fool I fired again and just knocked it to bits. The other one I finished off: a beautiful bird, but I am so upset about the other. The coloured one was rather damaged, and I couldn't help some of the feathers being blown away in the wind, but hope it will be all right. Soon reached the Advanced Base, dealt with the bird, had supper, cleared up a bit, and went to bed.

Saturday May 30

Still mist on all the trig. points, so I went out to reconnoitre how it will be best to work when it does clear, and to walk along the top of the cliff in search of ptarmigan. Took shot gun and seeing seals out on the bay near the hut I went for them, but since there was no white material for a screen , I could only pretend to be a seal, and none were deceived, and they went down. Climbed Dog Point and selected a point that must be visible almost anywhere in the neighbourhood, and built a small cairn on it. Climbed down to a point lower down to look down on the shore, and on the way back saw a white ptarmigan walking towards the gun. He was not very frightened, but when I walked up he went away a little and I reached the gun. If only I had had a camera I could have got a lovely picture, for it was only 5 yards away, and white among dark stones. I went further away so as to damage it as little as possible, and just as I had loaded, it gave its funny croak and flew away, but I brought it down about 30 yds away; after falling a bit it was quite dead. Hoping he would do for a specimen I wrapped it up in my sweater to keep the wind off its feathers, and seeing snow was coming on, went home.

This weather is most depressing, for the map must get on: have just developed a method of my own which I'll start on tomorrow. One thing about not knowing the rules of mapping is that you've no idea how many you are breaking when you start doing it your own way! If the weather were better and/or the bunks wider life here would be most restful. Life alone, or almost alone, with Karl is full of anxiety: recently he has been extremely nice most of the time, but then a day comes when he drives you just frantic. And when he talks - and the same applies to Brownie - it is I, I, I all the time, though admittedly he tells a story extremely well and not a few of them are most amusing.

Sunday May 31st.

Getting behind the clock. Couldn't get to sleep for four hours last night so wasn't up till midday today. It's no lighter at any time of day than another and no more likely to be fine, so you may as well do what you want just when you want. Still clouds on trig. points so I started off at 2p.m. to do it my own way. This entails much trudging in the soft snow. By 6p.m. I had finished my triangle, and to persuade myself that there was still plenty of time to do more, I had breakfast again - indeed there's nothing but porridge and pemmican to eat here. Then off again, and by soon after midnight I had nearly all the Advanced Base bay mapped. It was snowing all the time, but no wind, so one got less cold than wet; the dull light was trying to the eyes. Got to bed about 2a.m.

Monday June 1st.

Up at midday again. June at last. May has passed slowly and has been the least pleasant month for a long time, and so it's grand to be in June. I always seem to be away from the base on the morning of the first of each month now-a-days - good!

Snowing and wind, but not enough to prevent planetabling. Soon the wind died. Hard trudging through deep snow. Mapped from half-way from here to Dog Point up to beyond Boat point. I had hoped to get as far as "225", but when a mile or two beyond Boat point it started snowing so that I couldn't see my last cairn; it cleared a bit so that I could just fix that point, and I thought it best to return filling in the detail of the coastline. Got home 9.15p.m.. Inked in maps and prepared for a long day tomorrow if reasonably fine.

Tuesday June 2nd.

Wonder if Brownie will have got any interesting news from England. This was the day of his communications.

Normally a person has to get out of bed knowing that he could go on sleeping if he were allowed to, but here I have just gone on sleeping till can no more, and then get up. Have just had breakfast and been out to see what it is like outside - can hardly see through the window it is so frosted up - and found it windy with drift and visibility less than two miles, so it's no go my starting off. It was a big breakfast - of curried porridge as that is the result to not cleaning out your ration bowl - in preparation for a long day planetabling round to the Valley hut, and stay there the night and home tomorrow. But it's no good planning anything to time-table here: must just wait here till visibility improves, and then I'll push off. So back to "The Andrie Diaries" which is most interesting and stimulating: the three were so cheerful in all their difficulties.

Soon got cold, so got back into bed and read there. Finished the Andrie story - a pathetic one, but not the book. Lay back, nice just to think and dream. Wind howling all the time. Wonder whose tennis day it is at home. They will be playing cricket on the close now. After 7p.m. got up to look at the weather. Still drifting and can't see two miles. Felt like eating - merely for something else to do. Searched again through the shelves, but there's nothing but currie powder, baking powder, Bemax and treacle. At last found a huge tin of Heinz Baked Beans. These always remind me of Lyons and are rather repulsive, but they would be a change. Stuck half way through - they are so stodgy. Will be suffering from excess of vitamin B soon, as I've nearly eaten two cartons full of Bemax chocolate since coming here, each bar containing 80 international standard units of vitamin B, and a pamphlet "the truth about vitamins." Went through some of my auroral notes. Found an Ian Hay book, so am going back to bed to see if he has anything amusing to say. Midnight: the wind has died down a bit and it's clearing, so I must push off after another breakfast. And I was just going to make supper and go to bed.

Wednesday June 3rd

Fed up with this country and its damnable weather. Nice and clear after "breakfast" so packed up everything on the little sledge and set off. The whole of the Hansteen valley was clear, but before long the wind got up again and it began to snow slightly. Hoping it might improve again I pushed on, but before I reached the point where mapping started the visibility was so bad that the Advanced Base was only visible as a black mark. So had to turn back, furious. I'm tired of all this trudging in deep soft snow - often 18 inches deep and slush below when you are near the tide-crack - and like a fool I've brought a komager with a large hole in it and large lumps of snow get through it. Of course I'm an absolute fool not to have brought ski. Still, after reading about Andrie and Co. it's ridiculous to complain! But I'm disappointed about the survey: Dan said "Don't worry much about accuracy, but get the whole thing done," but what I've done up to now I've done carefully, and don't want to throw it all out now. Besides one can do practically nothing when the visibility is only a mile. Poor John and Archie, how I pity you if you are having this weather, and you too, Dan, if you are fit yet. Got back at 2a.m. and was put in a good temper by the two snow buntings that feed on some rice on the ground outside the window here. They really are the sweetest things.

The wind howled all the time, and it was blowing hard when I got up after noon, and snow was falling in huge wet flakes. The wind soon dropped a bit but the snow continued till after midnight with impossible visibility. Got on very well going through my auroral observations, and finished Ian Hay's "Carrying On" - utter trash; still, it was written during the war, so must be excused.

Thursday June 4th.

An exhausting day. Plane-tabled round the coast from the Advanced Base to the Valley hut - 9 miles - and it took from 2p.m. till after midnight - mostly because I could hardly move the sledge in the soft deep snow, which was, of course, at its worst at the tide-crack where I was working. At first I worked on my margarine-paper map, but then the trig. points became visible and I could use the proper plane-table map. Then I got into great difficulties for the trig. points don't seem accurate: if you set on three of them you'll be miles out with another. I worked with three given ones for sometime round the coast, then David's Cairn became invisible and I had to use "176", only to find after walking a mile or more along the coast, I had apparently gone 200 yds out into the bay! Eventually reached the hut, finding out too late that the sledge ran better on the stones than on the snow.

Friday June 5th.

Another tiring day. Had uncomfortable night in a bed 5½ ft long, which was not a good beginning. It was drifting and snowing hard when I left for the base, and very bad visibility, so that compass-steering was necessary, but these were but slight inconveniences compared with the soft snow. You just floundered about, sometimes nearly up to the knee, always well above the ankle, and the sledge (?) so that the boxes etc. were all in the snow and it just wouldn't move. I can hardly ever have been so exhausted as when I struck land near "135": I nearly just sat down and cried! The wind was strong and I had to face straight into it and the drift, but this simplified steering very much. After sighting land the surface on the E. side of the bay was much better and the visibility became good, so that Base mountain was visible soon after passing Zeipel Island, and I got in at 9.45p.m. having covered 8 or 9 miles in 6¾ hours!

Found the others well and that they had shot a bear: Karl had heard a lazy puppy growl and on going out saw six of them out in the bay chasing the bear away. Apparently then the bear turned and chased the puppies and nearly killed Fatima, but then Karl wounded it and knocked it over and Brownie finished it off afterwards. Of course Karl's story was extremely long and self-laudatory.

Saturday June 6th.

Clouds cleared away in the evening, so I set up the plane-table at the observatory and found why everything had been going wrong. The 176 trig. point was marked ¼ mile out of place on the planetable, so no wonder things had been a bit funny.

Sunday June 7th.

Cloudy and windy at first, but then it cleared up, and Karl set off for the ice-cap about noon. In the afternoon Brownie went after seals in the pack while I went plane-tabling - to set 176 properly on the map. It was glorious going across the bay: the sky was a real blue, the sun was shining through thin cirrus clouds at times, lighting them up with iridescent colours of pink and blue round the edges. Tried to climb the cape at too steep a place, and it would have taken much less time to go round the easier way. It's humiliating to be stuck at the bottom of a hard snow slope, and all the puppies look down at you from the top, disgusted with you. From the cape you get a beautiful view back to Snotopen and its glacier, and from the top you get a fine one down the bay and over to Mt. Franklin, and the Old Man looking over its shoulder. It was glorious to be alive. At the top there was truly a gale blowing, so much so that it blew the plane-table over, so after fixing the conspicuous boulder on the top, and the 100m contour, returned homewards, the wind making it too unpleasant and impossible to be accurate in such exposed positions. So after doing the unmapped part of the map below, I returned home via Zeipel Island.

Brownie had shot two seals in the pack, and after supper we took five puppies - Pinkiak, Pat, Fuzziak, K2 and Euphemia - to see if we could get them to pull the seals home. For a long time we couldn't get them to move at all: they just tried to get out of their harnesses or fight one another. Fuzziak was hopeless and just lay on the ground, so we unharnessed her, and Brownie walked 30 yards ahead with her and I pulled on her trace. Suddenly Pat caught on the idea and pulled hard when I started pulling, and the others followed suit, and after straightening them up after a few yards they went well: I was hardly pulling and wasn't doing more than 10 per cent of the work, often slackening entirely and at last dropped the trace and the puppies went on finely. Then we put Fuzziak on, and they all went off at a gallop leaving me far behind. The ice, which two days ago was deep in snow, was now covered almost all over by water only, which made pulling easy for the puppies. They, and we, were greatly excited by the biggest stone avalanche we've seen, down one of the gullies to the north. The good puppies were extra well fed at night: they really had done marvellously, and if they go on like this, they will be most useful. They really seemed to enjoy it.

Monday June 8th.

A very windy day, so I made it one of these profitable days when one gets a lot done at the base. Amongst other things we put up a new meat rack. Had seal's heart for lunch - most good - and ptarmigan and glaucous gull at night - the former very good and the latter much better than it smells - an oily smell. The stream is flowing again today.

Tuesday June 9th.

A glorious day - though little above freezing point, and with quite a breeze it was glorious lying on the glacier basking in the sun. The sky was a beautiful rich blue, neither dark nor pale, which contrasted so perfectly with the white of the snow, the red or black of the rocks, and the pale blue of the ice which near here is now dry and smooth. A rude glaucous hovered above me saying "Caw, its fine up here" but then he swooped down and I bagged my first. There are three reindeer that are determined to graze near here, and the puppies again chased them away this morning. Will the big dogs chase them for miles and we lose them when they come home? Tried to sledge more puppies tonight: Fatima and No.8 are hopeless, but Leslie learnt well, and K2 and Euphemia seemed to enjoy it again. No fire today.

Wednesday, Thursday June 10th, 11th.

There is something about this hut which prevents sleep: Karl says it is so "dampy" and he and I both lie awake for hour after hour. An international day today, but we are now getting so used to them that they are now no rush or bother, and I got through a lot of things in the meantime, and made a complete, and let's hope good, rigid sledge out of two broken ones. It's been like an autumn day in England - pelting with rain - a lot of the time. The whole landscape is changing and is not so pretty, for on the capes round the bay the snow is coming off and the black rock staring out. We put on Fatima a harness which is difficult to get off, and tied her and No.8 in turn to a sledge and left them out in the bay, and walked home, and they both pulled the sledge home; so there's hope even for these two.

Can't understand Brownie - he's so suddenly changed in the last few days: he has always been indolent and unenterprising, but now I don't get a chance to do anything as he does it all; he never took any interest in anything 'household,' but now not only has he taken to bread making, but he even experimented with a milk loaf. I have often wondered if he would wake up when the summer came, and he is doing so in an astonishing manner.

Friday June 12th.

Robert said over the wireless today that he was ready to leave the ice-cap almost at once, and would leave when fine, so we'll have him here soon, tho' I'm afraid I will have to leave as soon as he arrives. We tried to get in contact with m.s. 'Polar" as arranged, by radio-telephone this morning, but failed: she is said to be in the South of Hinlopen. Bad weather in the morning, so I made a sort of a sledge sail for fun, but it was not a complete success. In the afternoon Brownie and I took the worst five puppies with the sledge along the coast to the north, and then left the sledge to investigate a suspected lake inland; there was none, but the scenery in the hollow will certainly be fine when the clouds clear away. Saw two new birds - Skua and Purple Sandpiper. Better success with the dogs on the way home: usually one of us runs in front and the other sits on the sledge with the whip, but when Brownie dropped behind today I managed to drive them home for a good half-mile. Most encouraging, but it's a pity two or three of them have to be taught by force. Then Brownie went out after seals and got one, and I made an improved sledge sail: it's out of the old darkroom red curtain-blanket, and looks more like a procession banner and should have on it "Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand," or "Hands off Abyssinia" or "Down with Glen." If it's windy tomorrow it will be fun to see if it's any good. I'm getting more and more interested and thrilled by the problems of Polar travel - the North Pole must be conquered.

Saturday June 13th.

Another fine day. Brownie shot four more seals in the pack, which is grand, but with the one he got last night it meant five to bring home. By mistake I only took out four harnesses and six puppies, but with one of us pulling in front and one pushing the back seal with the gun, and four puppies pulling hard, we slowly got home. The puppies are really pulling well now. Slight wind today but in a gust it moved the empty rigid on the ice outside, so in a strong wind the sail should be some help. Brownie got within 13 yards of a reindeer today - they are curious beasts.

Sunday June 14th.

David's birthday, and, as arranged, we remembered him and wished him many happy returns at 7a.m. and 5a.m.

'From this plateau the mountain top raises itself, covered with snow, or rather loose fine-grained ice. From its highest point there was a splendid and uncommonly extensive view in all directions, which the glorious weather with which they were favoured enabled the Swedes thoroughly to enjoy. In the north the horizon was bounded by an endless ice-field, in which, from this height, no opening could be distinguished, and whose uniformity was broken only at some few places by the group of islands lying north of NorthEastLand, the Seven Islands, Walden Island, Great and Little Table Island, and the land marked on Parry's map "Distant High land." Towards the east the view was bounded by the high desolate snow plain which occupies the whole of the interior of NorthEastLand................"

Today as it was a good clear day we climbed to the top of Snotoppen to get the view. The snow on the glacier was very soft and you sunk very deep many steps, and at the top we found a small crevasse. Euphemia tried to climb down into it. Puppies as delightful as ever. When Pinkiak goes in deep with his fore-legs he is too lazy to pull them out, and just sits and looks round for help. From the top the view is grand as Nordenskieold describes. Our view, however, differed from his in that to the N.W. we saw a lead of open water, possibly turning round into Hinloppen. We then went on down the other side and looked over one steep place where it looks as if the hill has fallen away, and the ice falls away vertically. We slid down a steep snow slope for a long way: this was the best way to get down for from the time we left there till time we reached Brandy Bay again, it was just hell. My sense of humour fails at the two-hundredth time of stepping thigh deep into soft snow, and my komagers fell to bits and filled up with snow. I tried rolling which was quite successful, but I got too giddy, and the puppies found this a grand new sport and jumped on me and licked me all over. At last we got down into Bird Bay, and for some miles had to walk either in treacherous snow, or on stones of various shapes - I now had almost no soles to my komagers, and one came off two feet down the snow! - or in a stream, which was the best walking of the lot. We saw quite a lot of purple flowers out - that is grand - and two eiders. Fuzziak fell into a big crack in the bay ice, so she should be cleaner now! At the end of a day such as this you often wonder whether you have enjoyed it or not. If the criterion is whether or not you would repeat the trip under the same circumstances, then the answer to today is 'no.' Inland travel in this season is just not worth while.

We had been expecting Karl and Robert all day today, and when from the top of Snotoppen we couldn't see them in the bay we went on, but they gave us the slip, for when we got back to the base they had arrived. Grand to see Robert again.