The cinema : 1952 (1952)

122 THE CINEMA On the next day it was the same, it was wonderful how fast we were going. On the third day we saw the land. We got close in, and the land we saw was our own land the land which leans over the sea. But now the ice was rough and piled higher than any I'd ever seen ; from one high place one sledge fell and it fell so hard it broke in two. We had to leave this sledge where it was and its load of good deerskins and good pots and the whole of one seal. We kept on, it was a long time, but at last we got close to the land which leans over the sea, and we could see high up its caves and dark places, but we had to lift our heads to look up at its edge, it rose so high in the sky. We had to stop. We were tired too tired to go on. From the dogs there wras quick breathing and there was foam on their mouths. While we got rest and slow breathing, I wondered however we could get into the big land which was now almost leaning over us as well as the sea. We got rest and we started again, but soon we could hardly move, so deep were we in the ice. We looked small, like children. To climb some of the big pieces we had to cut footholds with our knives and then from the top pull up our dogs by their traces and then lower them down over the sides, and then by the master lines pull up the sledges, and then lower them down over the sides. We were deep in one place in this big ice, and the dogs, their traces all tangled, were all thrown together like fish in a net, and they were fighting to kill. We were trying to stop them and then with my feet I felt something. It was the ice it was moving. My wife and my children were on a high ledge behind us, and though I could not hear them above the great noise of the dogs, I could see them waving their arms. At first it looked as if it was the big land that moved, passing us by. 'Twavee,' I yelled, 'Twavee.' We must go back we must go back out of this rough ice. We threw away half the load of the sledge, and we turned and we be