On March 10 we took the road for home.  I had divided my dogs between Wisting and Hanssen, but they got no assistance from these bags of bones, only trouble.  The other three teams had held out well.  There was hardly anything wrong to be seen with Hanssen’s.  Wisting’s team was looked upon as the strongest, but his dogs had got very thin; however, they did their work well.  Wisting’s sledge had also been overloaded; it was even heavier than mine.  Johansen’s animals had originally been regarded as the weakest, but they proved themselves very tough in the long-run.  They were no racers, but always managed to scramble along somehow.  Their motto was:  “If we don’t get there to-day, we’ll get there to-morrow.”  They all came home.

Our original idea was that the homeward journey should be a sort of pleasure trip, that we should sit on the sledges and take it easy; but in the circumstances this was not to be thought of.  The dogs had quite enough to do with the empty sledges.  The same day we reached the place where we had left a case of dogs’ pemmican, and camped there, having done twenty-nine and three-quarter miles.  The weather was cold and raw; temperature, -25.6deg.  F. This weather took the last remnant of strength out of my dogs; instead of resting at night, they lay huddled together and freezing.  It was pitiful to see them.  In the morning they had to be lifted up and put on their feet; they had not strength enough to raise themselves.  When they had staggered on a little way and got some warmth into their bodies, they seemed to be rather better —­ at any rate, they could keep up with us.  The following day we did twenty-four and three-quarter miles; temperature, -32.8deg.  F.

On the 12th we passed the depot in 81deg.  S. The big pressure ridges to the east were easily visible, and we got a good bearing, which would possibly come in useful later for fixing the position of the depot.  That day we did twenty-four and three-quarter miles; temperature, -39deg.  F. March 13 began calm and fine, but by half-past ten in the morning a strong wind had sprung up from the east-south-east with thick driving snow.  So as not to lose the tracks we had followed so far, we pitched our camp, to wait till the storm was over.  The wind howled and took hold of the tents, but could not move them.  The next day it blew just as hard from the same quarter, and we decided to wait.  The temperature was as usual, with the wind in this quarter; -11.2deg.  F. The wind did not moderate till 10.30 a.m. on the 15th, when we were able to make a start.

What a sight there was outside!  How were we going to begin to bring order out of this chaos?  The sledges were completely snowed up; whips, ski-bindings, and harness largely eaten up.  It was a nice predicament.  Fortunately we were well supplied with Alpine rope, and that did for the harness; spare straps came in for ski-bindings, but the whips were not so easy to make good.  Hanssen, who drove first, was bound