The next step was the inauguration of the teaming work, which was to occupy us through the winter. I already had my pemmican and some miscellaneous supplies at Cape Louis Napoleon and two sledge loads of provisions at Cape Fraser. The rapidly disappearing daylight being now too limited for effective travelling, I was obliged to await the appearance of the next moon before starting for a personal reconnoissance of the coast northward. On the 29th I left the ship with Henson and one Eskimo. The soft snow of the last two storms compelled me to break a road for the sledges with snowshoes across Allman Bay and along many portions of the ice-foot, but in spite of this delay we camped at Cape Louis Napoleon after a long march. The next day we reached Cape Fraser, having been impeded by the tide rising over the ice-foot, and camped at Henson’s farthest, at the beginning of what seemed an impracticable ice-foot. It was the only possible way of advance, however, as the still-moving pack in the channel was entirely impassable. The following day I made a reconnoissance on foot as far as Scoresby Bay, and though the ice-foot was then impracticable for sledges, I was convinced that a good deal of earnest work with picks and shovels, assisted by the levelling effects of the next spring tides, would enable me to get loaded sledges over it during the next moon. From Cape Norton Shaw I could see that by making a detour into Scoresby Bay the heavy pack could be avoided in crossing. This stretch of ice-foot from Cape Fraser to Cape Norton Shaw is extremely Alpine in character, being an almost continuous succession of huge blocks and masses of bergs and old floes, forced bodily out of the water and up on to the rocks. At Cape John Barrow a large berg had been forced up on the solid rock of the high-tide level. Returning from my reconnoissance, I camped again at Cape Fraser, building the first of the snow igloos, which I intended should be constructed at convenient intervals the entire distance to Fort Conger. The next three days were occupied in bringing the supplies at Cape Louis Napoleon up to Cape Fraser, and on the 4th of November I returned to the ship. The time until the return of the next moon was fully occupied in making and repairing sledges, bringing in beef from the cache on Bache Peninsula, and transporting supplies and dog-food to Cape Hawkes, beyond the heavy going of Allman Bay. During much of this time the temperature was in the –40°’s, Fahr.