These were the conditions when the call came that April day to Dr. Grenfell.  Traveling at this season was, at best, attended by risk.  But this man’s life depended upon his going, and no risk could be permitted to stand in the way of duty.  Without delay he packed his komatik box with medicines, bandages and instruments.  It was certain he would have many calls, both for medical and surgical attention, from the scattered cottages he should pass, and on these expeditions he always travels fully prepared to meet any ordinary emergency from administering pills to amputating a leg or an arm.  He also packed in the box a supply of provisions and his usual cooking kit.

Only in cases of stress do men take long journeys with dogs alone, but there was no man about the hospital at this time that Grenfell could take with him as a traveling companion and to assist him, and no time to wait for any one, and so, quite alone and driving his own team, he set out upon his journey.

It was mid-afternoon when he “broke” his komatik loose, and his dogs, eager for the journey, turned down upon the trail at a run.  The dogs were fresh and in the pink of condition, and many miles were behind him when he halted his team at dusk before a fisherman’s cottage.  Here he spent the night, and the following morning, bright and early, harnessed his dogs and was again hurrying forward.

The morning was fine and snappy.  The snow, frozen and crisp, gave the dogs good footing.  The komatik slid freely over the surface.  Dr. Grenfell urged the animals forward that they might take all the advantage possible of the good sledging before the heat of the midday sun should soften the snow and make the hauling hard.

The fisherman’s cottage where he had spent the night was on the shores of a deep inlet, and a few rods beyond the cottage the trail turned down upon the inlet ice, and here took a straight course across the ice to the opposite shore, some five miles distant, where it plunged into the forest to cross another neck of land.

A light breeze was coming in from the sea, the ice had every appearance of being solid and secure, and Dr. Grenfell dove out upon it for a straight line across.  To have followed the shore would have increased the distance to nearly thirty miles.

Everything went well until perhaps half the distance had been covered.  Then suddenly there came a shift of wind, and Grenfell discovered, with some apprehension, that a stiff breeze was rising, and now blowing from land toward the sea, instead of from the sea toward the land as it had done when he started early in the morning from the fisherman’s cottage.  Still the ice was firm enough, and in any case there was no advantage to be had by turning back, for he was as near one shore as the other.

Already the surface of the ice, which, with several warm days, had become more or less porous and rotten, was covered with deep slush.  The western sky was now blackened by heavy wind clouds, and with scarce any warning the breeze developed into a gale.  Forcing his dogs forward at their best pace, while he ran by the side of the komatik, he soon put another mile behind him.  Before him the shore loomed up, and did not seem far away.  But every minute counted.  It was evident the ice could not stand the strain of the wind much longer.