The _Boreal's_ way was
thus blocked. We warped her with ice-anchors and the capstan into the
position in which she should lay up for her winter's drift. This was in
about 79 deg. 20' N. The sun had now totally vanished from our bleak sky,
not to reappear till the following year.
Well, there was sledging with the dogs, and bear-hunting among the
hummocks, as the months, one by one, went by. One day Wilson, by far our
best shot, got a walrus-bull; Clark followed the traditional pursuit of
a Chief, examining Crustacea; Maitland and I were in a relation of close
friendship, and I assisted his meteorological observations in a snow-hut
built near the ship. Often, through the twenty-four hours, a clear blue
moon, very spectral, very fair, suffused all our dim and livid clime.
It was five days before Christmas that Clark made the great
announcement: he had determined, he said, if our splendid northward
drift continued, to leave the ship about the middle of next March for
the dash to the Pole.
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