A Journey performed along the South Shore of Cockburn
Island.--Confirmation of an Outlet to the Polar Sea.--Partial
Disruption of the Old Ice, and formation of New.--Return through
the Narrows to the Eastward.--Proceed to examine the Coast to the
Northeastward.--Fury's Anchor broken.--Stand over to Igloolik to
look for Winter-quarters.--Excursion to the Head of Quilliam
Creek.--Ships forced to the Westward by Gales of Wind--A Canal
sawed through the Ice, and the Ships secured in their Winter
Station.--Continued Visits of the Esquimaux, and Arrival of some of
the Winter Island Tribe.--Proposed Plan of Operations in the
ensuing Spring.
A light air springing up from the eastward on the morning of the 8th, we
took advantage of it to run up the margin of the fixed ice, which was
now, perhaps, half a mile farther to the westward, in consequence of
small pieces being occasionally detached from it, than it had been when
we tacked off it ten days before.
The pools on the floes were now so hardly frozen, that skating and
sliding were going on upon them the whole day, though but a week before
it had been dangerous to venture upon them.
This latter circumstance, together with the fineness of the weather, and
the tempting appearance of the shore of Cockburn Island, which seemed
better calculated for travelling than any that we had seen, combined to
induce me to despatch another party to the westward, with the hope of
increasing, by the only means within our reach, our knowledge of the
lands and sea in that direction. Lieutenant Reid and Mr. Bushnan were
once more selected for that service, to be accompanied by eight men, a
large number being preferred, because by this means only is it
practicable to accomplish a tolerably long journey, especially on
account of the additional weight of warm clothing which the present
advanced state of the season rendered indispensable. Lieutenant Reid was
furnished with six days' provisions, and directed to land where most
practicable on the northern shore, and thence to pursue his journey to
the westward as far as his resources would admit, gaining all possible
information that might be useful or interesting.
On the 14th, while an easterly breeze continued, the water increased
very much in breadth to the westward of the fixed floe to which we were
attached; several lanes opening out, and leaving in some places a
channel not less than three miles in width. At two P.M., the wind
suddenly shifting to the westward, closed up every open space in a few
hours, leaving not a drop of water in sight from the masthead in that
direction. To this, however, we had no objection; for being now certain
that the ice was at liberty to move in the western part of the strait,
we felt confident that, if once our present narrow barrier were also
detached, the ordinary changes of wind and tide would inevitably afford
us opportunities of making progress. The westerly wind was accompanied
by fine snow, which continued during the night, rendering the weather
extremely thick, and our situation, consequently, very precarious,
should the ice give way during the hours of darkness.
At four P.M. on the 15th we discovered our travellers upon the ice. A
fresh party being despatched to meet and to relieve them of their
knapsacks, Lieutenant Reid arrived safely on board at seven P.M.,
having, by a quick and most satisfactory journey, ascertained the
immediate junction of the Strait of the Fury and Hecla with the Polar
Sea.
The weather continuing very thick, with small snow, and there being now
every reason to suppose a final disruption of the fixed ice at hand, I
determined to provide against the danger to which, at night, this
long-wished-for event would expose the ships, by adopting a plan that
had often before occurred to me as likely to prove beneficial in an
unknown and critical navigation such as this. This was nothing more than
the establishment of a temporary lighthouse on shore during the night,
which, in case of our getting adrift, would, together with the
soundings, afford us that security which the sluggish traversing of the
compasses otherwise rendered extremely doubtful. For this purpose, two
steady men, provided with a tent and blankets, were landed on the east
point of Amherst Island at sunset, to keep up some bright lights during
the eight hours of darkness, and to be sent for at daylight in the
morning.
On the 17th the wind freshened almost to a gale from the northwest, with
thicker and more constant snow than before. The thermometer fell to
16-1/2° at six A.M., rose no higher than 20° in the course of the day,
and got down to 12° at night, so that the young ice began now to form
about us in great quantities.
Appearances had now become so much against our making any farther
progress this season, as to render it a matter of very serious
consideration whether we ought to risk being shut up during the winter
in the middle of the strait, where, from whatever cause it might
proceed, the last year's ice was not yet wholly detached from the
shores, and where a fresh formation had already commenced, which there
was too much reason to believe would prove a permanent one. Our
wintering in the strait involved the certainty of being frozen up for
eleven months; a sickening prospect under any circumstances, but in the
present instance, probably, fatal to our best hopes and expectations.
The young ice had now formed so thick about the Fury, that it became
rather doubtful whether we should get her out without an increase of
wind to assist in extricating her, or a decrease of cold. At ten A.M.,
however, we began to attempt it, but by noon had not moved the ship more
than half her own length. As soon as we had reached the outer point of
the floe, in a bay of which we had been lying, we had no longer the
means of applying a force from without, and, if alone, should therefore
have been helpless, at least for a time. The Hecla, however, being
fortunately unencumbered, in consequence of having lain in a less
sheltered place, sent her boats with a hawser to the margin of the young
ice; and ours being carried to meet it, by men walking upon planks, at
considerable risk of going through, she at length succeeded in pulling
us out; and, getting into clear water, or, rather, into less tough ice,
at three P.M. we shaped a course to the eastward.
In our return to Igloolik we encountered a severe gale, but we luckily
discovered it at half past ten A.M., though such was the difficulty of
distinguishing this from Neerlo-nakto, or either from the mainland, on
account of the snow that covered them, that, had it not been for the
Esquimaux huts, we should not easily have recognised the place. At noon
on the 24th we arrived off the point where the tents had first been
pitched, and were immediately greeted by a number of Esquimaux, who came
running down to the beach, shouting and jumping with all their might.
As soon as we had anchored I went on shore, accompanied by several of
the officers, to pay the Esquimaux a visit, a crowd of them meeting us,
as usual, on the beach, and greeting us with every demonstration of joy.
They seemed disappointed that we had not reached Akkolee, for they
always receive with eagerness any intelligence of their distant country
people. Many of them, and Toolemak among the number, frequently repeated
the expressions "_Owyak Na-o_!" (no summer), "_Took-too Na-o!_" (no
reindeer), which we considered at the time as some confirmation of our
own surmises respecting the badness of the past summer. When we told
them we were come to winter among them, they expressed very great, and,
doubtless, very sincere delight, and even a few _koyennas_ (thanks)
escaped them on the first communication of this piece of intelligence.
We found these people already established in their winter residences,
which consisted principally of the huts before described, but modified
in various ways both as to form and materials. The roofs, which were
wholly wanting in the summer, were now formed by skins stretched tight
across from side to side. This, however, as we soon afterward found, was
only a preparation for the final winter covering of snow; and, indeed,
many of the huts were subsequently lined in the same way within, the
skins being attached to the sides and roof by slender threads of
whalebone, disposed in large and regular stitches. Before the passages
already described, others were now added, from ten to fifteen feet in
length, and from four to five feet high, neatly constructed of large
flat slabs of ice, cemented together by snow and water. Some huts also
were entirely built of this material, of a rude circular or octangular
form, and roofed with skins like the others. The light and transparent
effect within these singular habitations gave one the idea of being in a
house of ground glass, and their newness made them look clean,
comfortable, and wholesome. Not so the more substantial bone huts,
which, from their extreme closeness and accumulated filth, emitted an
almost insupportable stench, to which an abundant supply of raw and
half-putrid walrus' flesh in no small degree contributed. The passages
to these are so low as to make it necessary to crawl on the hands and
knees to enter them; and the floors of the apartments were in some
places so slippery, that we could with difficulty pass and repass,
without the risk of continually falling among the filth with which they
were covered. These were the dirtiest, because the most durable, of any
Esquimaux habitations we had yet seen; and it may be supposed they did
not much improve during the winter. Some bitches with young were very
carefully and conveniently lodged in small square kennels, made of four
upright slabs of ice covered with a fifth, and having a small hole as a
door in one of the sides. The canoes were also laid upon two slabs of
this kind, like tall tombstones standing erect; and a quantity of spare
slabs lying in different places, gave the ground an appearance somewhat
resembling that of a statuary's yard. Large stores of walrus' and seals'
flesh, principally the former, were deposited under heaps of stones all
about the beach, and, as we afterward found, in various other parts of
the island, which showed that they had made some provision for the
winter, though, with their enormous consumption of food, it proved a
very inadequate one.
Leaving the Fury at seven A.M. on the 26th, and being favoured by a
fresh easterly breeze, we soon cleared the southwest point of Igloolik;
and, having passed the little island of _Oogli=aghioo_, immediately
perceived to the W.N.W. of us a group of islands, so exactly answering
the description of Coxe's Group, both in character and situation, as to
leave no doubt of our being exactly in Captain Lyon's former track.
Being still favoured by the wind and by the total absence of fixed ice,
we reached the islands at eleven A.M., and, after sailing a mile or two
among them, came at once in sight of two bluffs, forming the passage
pointed out by Toolemak, and then supposed to be called _Khemig_. The
land to the north, called by the Esquimaux _Khiadlaghioo_, was now found
to be, as we had before conjectured, the southern shore of Richards's
Bay. The land on our left or to the southward proved an island, five
miles and a quarter in length, of the same bold and rugged character as
the rest of this numerous group, and by far the largest of them all. To
prevent the necessity of reverting to this subject, I may at once add,
that two or three months after this, on laying before Ewerat our own
chart of the whole coast, in order to obtain the Esquimaux names, we
discovered that the island just mentioned was called _Khemig_, by which
name Ormond Island was _also_ distinguished; the word expressing, in the
Esquimaux language, anything stopping up the mouth of a place or
narrowing its entrance, and applied also more familiarly to the cork of
a bottle, or a plug of any kind. And thus were reconciled all the
apparent inconsistencies respecting this hitherto mysterious and
incomprehensible word, which had occasioned us so much perplexity.
At daylight on the 27th we crossed to a small island at the margin of
the ice; and leaving the boat there in charge of the coxswain and two of
the crew, Mr. Ross and myself, accompanied by the other two, set out
across the ice at seven A.M. to gain the main land, with the intention
of determining the extent of the inlet by walking up its southern bank.
After an hour's good travelling, we landed at eight A.M., and had
scarcely done so when we found ourselves at the very entrance, being
exactly opposite the place from which Mr. Richards and myself had
obtained the first view of the inlet. The patch of ice on which we had
been walking, and which was about three miles long, proved the only
remains of last year's formation; so forcibly had nature struggled to
get rid of this before the commencement of a fresh winter.
Walking quickly to the westward along this shore, which afforded
excellent travelling, we soon perceived that our business was at an end,
the inlet terminating a very short distance beyond where I had first
traced it, the apparent turn to the northward being only that of a
shallow bay.
Having thus completed our object, we set out on our return, and reached
the boat at three P.M., after a walk of twenty miles. The weather
fortunately remaining extremely mild, no young ice was formed to
obstruct our way, and we arrived on board at noon the following day,
after an examination peculiarly satisfactory, inasmuch as it proved the
non-existence of _any_ water communication with the Polar Sea, however
small and unfit for the navigation of ships, to the southward of the
Strait of the Fury and Hecla.
I found from Captain Lyon on my return, that, in consequence of some ice
coming in near the ships, he had shifted them round the point into the
berths-where it was my intention to place them during the winter; where
they now lay in from eleven to fourteen fathoms, at the distance of
three cables' length from the shore.
It was not till the afternoon of the 30th that the whole was completed,
and the Fury placed in the best berth for the winter that circumstances
would permit. An early release in the spring could here be scarcely
expected, nor, indeed, did the nature of the ice about us, independently
of situation, allow us to hope for it; but both these unfavourable
circumstances had been brought about by a contingency which no human
power or judgment could have obviated, and at which, therefore, it would
have been unreasonable, as well as useless, to repine. We lay here in
rather less than five fathoms, on a muddy bottom, at the distance of one
cable's length from the eastern shore of the bay.
The whole length of the canal we had sawed through was four thousand
three hundred and forty-three feet; the thickness of the ice, in the
level and regular parts, being from twelve to fourteen inches, but in
many places, where a separation had occurred, amounting to several feet.
I cannot sufficiently do justice to the cheerful alacrity with which the
men continued this laborious work during thirteen days, the thermometer
being frequently at _zero_, and once as low as -9° in that interval. It
was satisfactory, moreover, to find, that in the performance of this,
not a single addition had been made to the sick-list of either ship,
except by the accident of one man's falling into the canal, who returned
to his duty a day or two afterward.
While our people were thus employed, the Esquimaux had continued to make
daily visits to the ships, driving down on sledges with their wives and
children, and thronging on board in great numbers, as well to gratify
their curiosity, of which they do not, in general, possess much, as to
pick up whatever trifles we could afford to bestow upon them. These
people were at all times ready to assist in any work that was going on,
pulling on the ropes, heaving at the windlass, and sawing the ice,
sometimes for an hour together. They always accompanied their exertions
by imitating the sailors in their peculiar manner of "singing out" when
hauling, thus, at least, affording the latter constant amusement, if not
any very material assistance, during their labour. Among the numerous
young people at Igloolik, there were some whose activity on this and
other occasions particularly struck us. Of these I shall, at present,
only mention two: _N=o=ogloo_, an adopted son of Toolemak, and
_K=ong~ol~ek_, a brother of "John Bull." These two young men, who
were from eighteen to twenty years of age, and stood five feet seven
inches in height, displayed peculiar _tact_ in acquiring our method of
heaving at the windlass, an exercise at which _K=ong~ol~ek_ became
expert after an hour or two's practice. The countenances of both were
handsome and prepossessing, and their limbs well-formed and muscular;
qualities which, combined with their activity and manliness, rendered
them (to speak like a naturalist), perhaps, as fine specimens of the
human race as almost any country can produce.
Some of our Winter Island friends had now arrived also, being the party
who left us there towards the end of the preceding May, and whom we had
afterward overtaken on their journey to the northward. They were
certainly all very glad to see us again, and, throwing off the Esquimaux
for a time, shook us heartily by the hand, with every demonstration of
sincere delight. Ewerat, in his quiet, sensible way, which was always
respectable, gave us a circumstantial account of every event of his
journey. On his arrival at _Owlitteweek_, near which island we overtook
him, he had buried the greater part of his baggage under heaps of
stones, the ice no longer being fit for dragging the sledge upon. Here
also he was happily eased of a still greater burden, by the death of his
idiot boy, who thus escaped the miseries to which a longer life must,
among these people, have inevitably exposed him. As for that noisy
little fellow, "John Bull" (_Kooillitiuk_), he employed almost the whole
of his first visit in asking every one, by name, "How d'ye do, Mr. So
and So?" a question which had obtained him great credit among our people
at Winter Island. Being a very important little personage, he also took
great pride in pointing out various contrivances on board the ships, and
explaining to the other Esquimaux their different uses, to which the
latter did not fail to listen with all the attention due to so knowing
an oracle.