Note 1 — Chapter IV · We Say Good-bye to the “Fram”

We found large expanses of flat ice, and covered the ground quickly, farther and farther away from our comrades, into the unknown, where we two alone and the dogs were to wander for months. The Fram’s rigging had disappeared long ago behind the margin of the ice. We often came on piled-up ridges and uneven ice, where the sledges had to be helped and sometimes carried over. It often happened, too, that they capsized altogether, and it was only by dint of strenuous hauling that we righted them again. Somewhat exhausted by all this hard work, we stopped finally at 6 o’clock in the evening, and had then gone about 9 miles during the day. They were not quite the marches I had reckoned on, but we hoped that by degrees the sledges would become lighter and the ice better to travel over. The latter, too, seems to have been the case at first. On Sunday, March 17th, I say in my diary: “The ice appears to be more even the farther north we get; came across a lane, however, yesterday which necessitated a long detour.1 At half-past six we had done about 9 miles. As we had just reached a good camping-ground, and the dogs were tired, we stopped. Lowest temperature last night, -45° Fahr. (-42.8° C.).”