Survivor: The Autobiography by Jon E. Lewis Read Free Book Online Page A

islands east of Spitzbergen. It makes us feel anxious that we have not more game within shooting-distance. Our provisions must soon and richly be supplemented if we are to have any prospect of being able to hold out for a time.
    19 September [. . .] Today S. has been very busy house-building in accordance with a method he has invented. This consists of snow and fresh water being mixed after which the entire mass is built up into a wall and allowed to freeze. The work is both solid and neat. In a couple of days we shall probably have the baking-oven (i.e., the sleeping room) ready . . . The thickness of the ice of our floe at ‘the great cargo-quay’ has been measured and found to be 1.4–1.3–1.5m (4.6–4.3–4.95 ft) . . .
    23 September Today all three of us have been working busily on the hut cementing together ice-blocks. We have got on very well and the hut now begins to take form a little. After a couple more days of such weather and work it should not take long until we are able to move in. We can probably carry our supplies in there the day after tomorrow. This is very necessary, as mortar we employ snow mixed with water and of this mass, which is handled by S. with great skill he is also making a vaulted roof over the last parts between the walls. We have now a very good arrangement of the day with 8 hours’ work beginning with 2½ hours’ work, thereupon breakfast ¾ and afterwards work until 4.45 o’cl. when we dine and take supper in one meal. We have now also tried the meat of the great seal and have found that it tastes excellent. One of the very best improvements in the cooking is that of adding blood to the sauce for the steak. This makes it thick and it tastes as if we had bread. I cannot believe but that blood contains much carbohydrate, for our craving for bread is considerably less since we began to use blood in the food. We all think so. We have also found everything eatable both as regards bear, great seal, seal and ivory gull (bear-liver of course excepted). For want of time we have not yet been able to cut up and weigh our animal but I think we now have meat and ham until on in the spring. We must however shoot more so as to be able to have larger rations and to get more fuel and light.
    29 September [. . .] Our floe is diminished in a somewhat alarming degree close to our hut. The ice pressings bring the shores closer and closer to us. But we have a large and old hummock between the hut and the shore and hope that this will stop the pressure. This sounds magnificent when there is pressure but otherwise it does not appeal to us.
    Thickn. of ice 1.1–1.2–1.5–1.9 (3.6–3.9–4.95–6.27 ft) have been measured by a new fissure which has arisen in our floe. Yesterday evening the 28 we moved into our hut which was christened ‘the home’. We lay there last night and found it rather nice. But it will become much better of course. We must have the meat inside to protect ourselves against the bears. The ice in N.I. glacier is evidently stratified in a horizontal direction. The day before yesterday it rained a great part of the day which I suppose ought to be considered extremely remarkable at this time of the year and in this degree of latitude.
    1 October [. . .] The 1 Oct. was a good day. The evening was as divinely beautiful as one could wish. The water was allied with small animals and a bevy of 7 black-white ‘guillemots youngsters’ were swimming there. A couple of seals were seen too. The work with the hut went on well and we thought that we should have the outside ready by the 2nd. But then something else happened. At 5.30 o’cl. (local time) in the morning of the 2nd we heard a crash and thunder and water streamed into the hut and when rushed out we found that our large beautiful floe had been splintered into a number of little floes and that one fissure had divided the floe just outside the wall of the hut. The floe that remained to us had a diam. of only 24 metre (80 ft) and one