While the house was building, and as long as the sun was above the horizon, there was much trouble with the bears, whose daily visits were always productive of excitement. On the 26th of October, for instance, the day after all the crew first slept in the house, when the men had loaded the last sledge and stood in the track-ropes ready to draw it to the house, Van Heemskerck caught sight of three coming towards them from behind the ship. The men jumped out of the track-ropes, and as fortunately two halberds lay upon the sledge, Van Heemskerck took one and De Veer the other, while the rest ran to the ship, "and as they ran one of them fell into a crevice in the ice, which grieved us much, for we thought the bears would have run unto him to devour him," but they made straight after the others instead. "Meantime we and the man that fell into the cleft of ice took our advantage and got into the ship on the other side; which the bears perceiving, they came fiercely towards us that had no arms to defend us withal but only the two halberds, gave them work to do by throwing billets of firewood and other things at them, and every time we threw they ran after them as a dog does at a stone that has been cast at him. Meantime we sent a man down into the caboose to strike fire and another to fetch pikes; but we could get no fire, and so we had no means to shoot"—their firearms being matchlocks. "At the last as the bears came fiercely upon us we struck one of them with a halberd on the snout, wherewith she gave back when she felt herself hurt and went away, which the other two, that were not so large as she, perceiving, ran away." When the bears had gone and the long night set in, their place was taken by the white foxes, many of these being caught in traps and furnishing skins for clothes and flesh for meat—"not unlike that of the rabbit"—that was "as grateful as venison." The 19th of November was a great day. A chest of linen was opened and divided among the men for shirts, "for they had need of them." Next day they washed their shirts, having evidently made the new ones in a hurry, and, says De Veer, "it was so cold that when we had washed and wrung them they presently froze so stiff (out of the warm water) that although we laid them by a great fire the side that lay next the fire thawed, but the other side was hard frozen, so that we should sooner have torn them in sunder than have opened them, whereby we were forced to put them into the boiling water again to thaw them, it was so exceeding cold."