Blake's Burden by Harold Bindloss

Light snow was driving across the waste before a savage wind when the party sat at breakfast one morning a fortnight after Blake had shot the caribou. They had spent the first two days enjoying a badly needed rest, but the rest of the time had been passed in forced marches which severely taxed their strength. Part of their way, however, had lain across open country, for they were near the northern edge of the timber belt, and the straggling trees, dwarfed and bent by the wind, ran east and west in a deeply indented line. In some places they boldly stretched out towards the Pole in long promontories; in others they fell back in wide bays which Blake, steering by compass, held straight across and afterwards again plunged into the scrub. Three days were spent in struggling through the broadest tongue, but as a rule, a few hours' arduous march brought them out into the open.

Even there the ground was very rough and broken, and they were thankful for the numerous frozen creeks and lakes which provided an easier road.