We overhauled them, and fourteen of the poorest--they would not have survived the winter--were killed and used as food for the others.
I am often asked how the wild herbivorous animals, like the musk-ox and the reindeer, survive the winter in that snow-covered land.

By a strange paradox, the wild winds that rage in that country help them in their struggle for existence, for the wind sweeps the dried grasses and scattered creeping willows bare of snow over great stretches of land, and there the animals can graze.
December 22 marked the midnight of the "Great Night," the sun from that day starting on the return journey north.

In the afternoon all the Eskimos were assembled on deck, and I went to them with my watch in my hand, telling them that the sun was now coming back.

Marvin rang the ship's bell, Matt Henson fired three shots, and Borup set off some flashlight powder.

Then the men, women, and children formed in line and marched into the after deck house by the port gangway, passing the galley, where each one received, in addition to the day's rations, a quart of coffee, with sugar and milk, ship's biscuit, and musk-ox meat; the women were also given candy and the men tobacco.
After the celebration, Pingahshoo, a boy of twelve or thirteen, who helped Percy in the galley, started confidently south over the hills to meet the sun.