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National Geographic : 1900 Mar
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A HUNTING TRIP TO NORTHERN GREENLAND Almost everywhere along the Greenland coast we had caught glimpses of the Great Inland Glacier, or mighty Ice-Cap, which covers the interior of the country. From the North Water a vast stretch of the great ice-sheet had been seen, flowing over the peaks which bordered Inglefield Gulf. On August 23 we started with dogs, sledges, and Eskimo dog drivers for a trip upon this mighty table-land of ice. Three Eskimo with their families had come over with us from Inglefield Gulf, and we had two sledges and eight dogs. In the afternoon we rode across Olriks Bay, each man shouldered his pack, the Eskimo took up the dog-traces, and we were fairly on our way. Our route lay up a steep glacier, to the west of Half Dome Moun tain. To the right Olriks Bay ended abruptly in the white mass of the Marie Glacier; opposite rose the high plateau we had scoured so often for deer, and beyond, in the dim distance, stood out the purple mountains on the north shore of Inglefield Gulf, bearing on their summits the eternal icy covering of Greenland. We descended into a valley. Soon the soft, spongy soil of the latter changed to a field of ice, and the dogs were harnessed again to the sledges. But the ice was exceedingly sharp and rough, and the poor dogs howled most piteously; before long, indeed, their wounded feet were leaving blood spots on the snow. So we harnessed all but two-which ran away to one sledge, and pulled the other ourselves, until, a rocky ridge ap pearing, we halted and camped for the night. By the next afternoon we had skirted a river, made another passage over rough ice, and were standing, at a point some six miles inland, before the towering white wall of the Great Inland Glacier. The steep slope was many hundred feet in height, and it was something of a struggle to climb it, but it was done, and, the snow furnishing easy traveling, the dogs were once more divided between the two sledges. With sledges, snow-shoes, and ski we made good speed. Gradually the land behind us faded away, and the undulating surface of the ice-cap became more level; on every side stretched the snowy wastes of the Arctic continent. Three or four reddish-brown nunataks cropped up through the snow far to the left. A low ridge of ice was ascended, and at the same time a line of pale blue mountains, probably those about Wolstenholme Sound, came into view to the southwest. A sort of snow-fog settled upon us, covering us with hoar-frost. Here, some fifteen miles from the ice edge and at an elevation of
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