The coming of the polar night is not the spectacular rush that some imagine it to be. The day is not abruptly walled off; the night does not drop suddenly. Rather, the effect is a gradual accumulation, like that of an infinitely prolonged tide. Each day the darkness, which is the tide, washes in a little farther and stays a little longer; each time the day, which is a beach, contracts a little more, until at last it is covered. The onlooker is not conscious of haste. On the contrary, he is sensible of something of incalculable importance being accomplished with timeless patience. The going of the day is a gradual process, modulated by the intervention of twilight. You look up, and it is gone. But not completely. Long after the horizon has interposed itself, the sun continues to cast up a pale and dwindling imitation of the day. You can trace its progress by the glow thrown up as it makes its round just below the horizon.
—Alone, by Richard Byrd


While the men prepared the ship, an unnerving pattern recurred in the surrounding ice. Existing leads and open pools froze solidly enough to support men and loaded sleds during wintry snaps. Clear, cold nights, lit by sinuous northern lights and eye-burning stars, accompanied these drops in the thermometer. Then, with little warning, fierce gales and blinding snowstorms raked through the bay. The ice buckled and cracked as the underlying waves roiled their frozen covers. Treacherous crevasses, fissures and pressure ridges reappeared, while massive blocks of ice broke and cascaded about like tumbling dominoes. More cold air followed, and blown snow soon concealed these openings. Then the ice would thicken once more to await the next storm.
—Trial by Ice, by Richard Parry


I set off, taking with me a tin of condensed milk, some tea and matches.

I was only a few miles on my way when I put my hand in the breast pocket of my snow overshirt to get my goggles. The pouch was empty. The case with my goggles must have dropped from the pouch when I pulled the shirt over my head. Not long after, as I expected, my eyes began to cause me trouble. To make things worse the ice scape had changed out of all recognition in the snow and winds of the past few days. I was on the look-out for Cape Hawaii, but must have passed it without identifying it. I went wandering on. I could not be sure in what direction I was travelling, for I was having to make long detours to avoid large stretches of knee-deep water on top of the ice. I was sure I was somewhere along the east coast, for I could see the cliffs. I was being forced father and father to the east by the water, which stretched far out from the land. . . .

But now I was in a state bordering on panic. It was the only time in all my experience, on the ship, in the ice-pack, on the island, that I felt fear; not fear of danger, but from the weight of responsibility to Mamen, the helpless frustration of being lost while he waited for me to bring help. Even now, sixty years later, I can recall the sensation exactly; it still makes me feel ill and desperately unhappy. I had simply no idea of my exact whereabouts. My eyes were becoming more and more painful and useless.

Hours later I found myself in deep snow; to the southeast, a few miles away, I could dimly see the outline of a bold headland. . . . I had lost all sense of time and direction. . . . [H]ours later, wandering and stumbling, I recognized the black pebbly patches from which the snow had been cleared. I lay down on the bare pebbles, utterly exhausted. I had crawled over forty miles as the crow flies; how much more I had travelled in detours and attempts to find my way, I could not even guess. . . .

I arrived about 4.30 am on 25 May. My boots and stockings and legs were soaked through, well above my knees. The soles of my boots were worn into huge holes. Where the holes were the skin was gone, and my feet were raw and bleeding. No other trip I made compared with this one for sheer torture.
—Karluk, by William Laird McKinlay