Again the winter was passed in hard work for the coming spring. It was intended, in case a ship might come into Jones Sound in search of the _Fram_, to build cairns and leave a record of the expedition on Cone Island, and on different points in the sound. It was also intended to send a sledge-expedition to Beechy Island, partly to correct their chronometers, and partly to look at the dépôts left there half a century before. Schei and Sverdrup were to go north and map the tracts west of Greely Fiord. On 1st April 1902 three parties went off. The patent dog-food was nearly finished, and they had to carry stockfish instead, which weighed much heavier. Trusting to being able to obtain bears, Sverdrup did not take blubber nor meat. No bears were obtained when expected, and the dogs soon became very weak. It was not until the 10th April that a bear was seen and shot. Instead of travelling over the heavy ice towards Smorgrautberget, Sverdrup kept to the east shore, and then steered straight across Greely Fiord to Blaafjeld, in the south of Grant Land. They kept to the east side of a pressure-ridge which stretched straight across the fiord, and seemed to be the boundary between the fast ice of the previous year on Greely Fiord and the drift-ice outside. When near land, the ice became heavy, and it was with great difficulty that advance could be made. West of Blaafjeld they passed into a fiord where a large number of hares were seen. It was the pairing season, and they were scampering about in all directions. Sverdrup supposed they had lost their heads from love, and he slyly remarks that this is a thing which may happen to others besides hares. The fiord was named “Harefiord.” On 30th April they set off from the headland on the west side of the fiord. In the evening they camped near the most westerly foreland they had seen the previous year from Smorgrautberget. Next day they reached another fiord and entered it for a short distance, but as they were anxious to ascertain the extent of land to the west they did not venture to its head. Next day the land trended about due north, and when the weather cleared land was seen to the north-west, and they recognised they were in a bay. A straight line was made for the part farthest off, which was reached on the 6th May. Sverdrup here ascended a height, and found that he was on an island separated by a narrow sound from the land in the east. From a point about 3 miles north of the camp, the land turned to the north-east. North and west of this land, only sea could be made out. To the south was Axel Heiberg Land. Sverdrup built a cairn to mark their farthest north, as he had now decided to return. The latitude was found to be 81° 40′.