5 Karluk is stranded in the middle of the icy sea, and cannot break out of the ice, the crew has chosen to abandon this ship for lost.  

1 As we continue to sail on to the Arctic, we can only stare in dread as the ice slowly confine the Karluk. 

2 Stefansson is extremely anxious of this fact, as this would deter him from reaching his final goal of reaching his ‘Atlantis’. He is constantly pacing around, or looking out at the dreadful ice deserts that seem to slowly encase us in its icy fingers. 

3 4 Our morale was slowly fading, no one had hope, everyone was going to be buried in this ice! My mind was frozen, we were all freezing to death. We had no food, no water, no nothing! Death was already looming above us, everyone was bound to die here, forever trapped in the chilly arctic. 4) The crew gathered nightly in the saloon for Victrola concerts, choosing from among more than 200 records to pass the time. Some people told stories, played games, cooked lots of great food, to relieve stress.  

6 7 This is dreadful! No one on the ship knew what to do! The journey was doomed to fail to begin with. Panic and fear paralysed my mind. We have to abandon ship or we’ll be crushed! Everyone had an eerie premonition of the future but no one said anything. No one wanted to be the one to break the silence and neither did I. Our journey was grim and we’re hopeless.

1 We do not have the supplies to stay in this freezing prison any longer, so I have come to the conclusion that we must disembark the ship and travel through this cold plain in search of safety or some ship that may save us. The men are disheartened but I hope they have the will to strive on. We have stayed on this ship for so long, Steransson has taken a band of followers and left us in search of his underwater paradise and food. They are fools, but now I think we are not so different.

3 The mood of the crew is sombre, dreary. Morale is low as there is little hope for retribution and safety. The crew fears what all men fear, a painful, inglorious death in the middle of nowhere, forgotten by all. They fear because of their hunger and the cold that batters us night and day. We are close to snapping, to leaving this small shack in this endless sheet of ice to find what little hope there is in this land. God help us out of this hell. 

2 Stefansson was the first to snap. He was already extremely anxious of this entrapment, and when he saw that there was no hope for the ship to move again, he gathered some men and left to search for food. 

6 7 The frozen sea had long trapped us within. After the ice split our ship we had long abandoned it. The ghastly journey still continued, we had to find help or else the ice would slowly kill us. Stefansson had long betrayed us for his own survival. His disloyalty made me fume with anger. But I knew I had to stay calm. The crew needed me, as captain, I had to bear the responsibility of bringing up morale. I am holding desperately on  the belief we will survive. I am determined to overcome this nightmare.