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Northward drifted the Sedov. On Oct. 23, 1938, the crew celebrated the ship's first year in the ice floe, received a radio message from Comrades Stalin and Molotov saying: "We are confident that with the Bolshevik firmness characteristic of Soviet people you will overcome all difficulties and return victorious. We warmly shake your hands." Answered the crew: "No hardships, danger or privation will daunt us." Hardships, danger and privation there were plenty. Food was cached in tents across the ice, in case they had to abandon ship suddenly. One mild morning, when the temperature was only —15° F., the ice began grinding harder than usual. Men at the hydrographic tent fired a warning shot and the Sedov's crew went scampering across the ice toward the tent. As they arrived an ice heap bore down on the tent, burying it. The men escaped, but they had to work five hours digging out food cases and barrels of fuel oil, sledging them to a new depot.
Through the long Arctic night the 15 men busied themselves testing the water beneath the ice cap (they found it rich in flora), measuring the speed of their drift against the wind velocity (they verified Nansen's conclusion that speed of drift depends on wind), charting the geography of the Arctic (they determined the northwestern shore of the Laptev Sea. exploded a 125-year-old myth about the existence of Sannikov Land). On Jan. 30, they saw the sun again, like a flame over the southern horizon.
On Feb. 17, 1939, the Sedov arrived at Lat. 85°, 56', 42" N.; Long. 120°, 13', 20" E.—just 1.2 miles closer to the North Pole than Nansen got. The crew lined up on the bridge and fired a salute. Wirelessed Captain Badigin: "For several hours the crew looked out over a region never before visited by a ship in the history of humanity." Three days later the Sedov drifted across the 86th parallel, northernmost point of its journey.
All spring the crew worked to repair the steering gear and by June the Sedov's movements could be partly controlled. July 11 was the first clear summer day, with the temperature 2°. That evening some of the men went canoeing.
By Aug. 23 summer was ending, the temperature was down to —6.5°. During June and July the Sedov had drifted slowly northwestward, averaging 1.6 miles a day because of the lack of wind. Many times it had crossed its own path. All summer the crew had seen only two white bears and some seagulls and finches. One of the bears they shot, roasted, ate.
In the fall its drift was west by south, carrying it away from the Pole. On Oct. 23 was celebrated the second anniversary of the drift, with 37 kinfolk of the crew sending them words of cheer over the radio. On Nov. 7, 22nd anniversary of the October Revolution, the 15 men. carrying red banners and rifles, marched by torchlight to a mound of ice, and before this makeshift tribune lustily cheered the Land of the Soviets, the Communist Party and Comrade Joseph Stalin.