"After an absence of more than two years, the 'Ahvungah' has
brought back the scientific explorers who, having investigated
the phenomena of Arctic midnights, are glad to return to less
rigorous temperatures. The second winter the vessel, while
frozen in, was lifted upon ice hummocks in Whale Sound. Deeming
the 'Ahvungah' fast until early summer, some of the party,
availing themselves of a continuously shining, two weeks' moon,
and in order to avoid sun glare later in the season, made a
sledging trip inland over the 'Great Ice,'--the _Sermiksoak_,
but the loss of their dogs cut short the journey. During their
absence the floe holding the vessel had been broken from the
shore-ice by some upheaval unusual at that season, and had
drifted many miles. While travelling on the 'ice-foot' to
overtake the 'Ahvungah,' the members of the sledging party
suffered very severely. Only two deaths occurred during the
long voyage; a sailor was drowned in attempting to jump across
a lead that closed suddenly after he fell, and the
meteorologist, Herr Sprotmund, succumbed to heart disease while
climbing a glacier. The 'Ahvungah' touched here only long
enough to land the surgeon, Dr. Klinehurst, and the mail for
America, then went on to The Hague. It was learned from the
surgeon that two gentlemen of the party preferred to remain in
Polar regions at least another year--Professor Roy, the
palaeontologist, and Mr. Herriott, of New York, who is much
interested in ethnography. Having studied the Eskimos of the
Greenland coast, they crossed to the west shore of Smith's
Sound, and will make their way slowly through Ellesmere Land,
hunting traces of an Innuit tribe they believe to be the
descendants of the Onkilon of Siberia. These gentlemen expect
to meet whalers next year somewhere along the west coast, but
should their plan fail, still another winter will imprison
them."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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