I was up at daybreak on March 21st and climbed to the mast-head to scan carefully the horizon to the northward for signs of opening up of the ice. There was a heavy black water sky, and as daylight increased I could distinguish fairly open and easily navigable pack. Unfortunately, between us and it were three miles of dense heavy floe solidly cemented by a foot of new ice. An irregular line of weakness ran through the heavy floe towards the now open pack, about half a mile distant from the ship. I thought that if I could cut my way into this a hard and determined effort might succeed in getting us free or at any rate into a more favourable position for escape should the ice about us begin to open up. I had to consider very carefully whether to make the effort or not, for the coal supply was such that we could not afford a day’s hard steaming with no tangible result. Accompanied by Macklin I walked across the ice to examine this line of weakness more closely. It did not look promising and I cogitated for some time as to what to do. While we were walking back a crack opened in the new ice ahead of the ship. It presented a chance and I determined to take it. I gave orders for all hands to stand to, and told Kerr to get up full pressure of steam so that at any minute he could give the engines every ounce they would stand. He accomplished this very quickly, but before I had time to get under way a large, solid, heavy floe had turned across our bows and was completely blocking the lead. The full pressure of the engines could make no impression. I sent Macklin over the side with an ice anchor, and put all hands to warping her ahead. After a long effort we effected a turning movement of the floe, and the _Quest_, being able to insert her bow as a wedge, slowly but surely forced her way into the lead. After some hard ramming and pushing at the floes we reached the line of weakness, to find that the most difficult part of our work lay before us. For a long time, in spite of tremendous efforts, we made little headway. We persisted, however, and after several hours of hard ramming and squeezing our way between heavy floes we won at last into loose pack, and soon after into comparatively open water. It was a great relief to me to get away. Had we remained frozen in till mid-winter and the ship been involved in heavy pressure our position would have been a precarious one, for there would have been little daylight to enable us to see what was happening, and there would have been long hours of darkness in which to contend with the heaving pack.