Note 3 — Chapter IX · The Journey Southward

“Monday, June 1st. Yesterday it at last grew a little calmer, and cleared up so that we had bright sunshine in the evening. We rejoiced in the thought of moving on, got our kayaks and everything ready to launch, and crept into our bag, to turn out early this morning for a fine day, as we thought. The only thing that made it a little doubtful was that the barometer had ceased rising—had fallen again 1 millim., in fact. In the night the storm came on again—the same driving snow, only with this difference, that now the wind is going round the compass with the sun, so there must soon be an end of it. This is beginning to be too much of a good thing; I am now seriously afraid that the Fram will get home before us. I went for a walk inland yesterday. There were flat clay and gravel stretches everywhere. I saw numerous traces of geese, and in one place some white egg-shell, undoubtedly belonging to a goose’s egg.” We therefore called the island Goose Island.3