With fresh overnight snow, our first landing at this historical site was somewhat bleak. It reinforced how tough life must have been for the Thule people who settled here centuries ago. In more recent times, a German expedition had overwintered here in 1869-70, having been snowed in on their quest to reach the North Pole and/or the North-West Passage. Sabine Island itself was named after Edward Sabine who arrived here in 1823 with Douglas Clavering to conduct an experiment with the "two-second pendulum", in an attempt to prove Sir Isaac Newton's theory that the earth is oblate (slightly flattened at the poles).