Preparations for the Winter.—Various Meteorological Phenomena to the close of the year 1822.—Sickness among the Esquimaux.—Meteorological Phenomena to the end of March.
November.—The measures now adopted for the security of the ships and their stores, for the maintenance of economy, cleanliness, and health, and for the prosecution of the various observations and experiments, being principally the same as those already detailed in the preceding winter's narrative, I shall be readily excused for passing them over in silence.
The daily visits of the Esquimaux to the ships throughout the winter afforded, both to officers and men, a fund of constant variety and never-failing amusement, which no resources of our own could possibly have furnished. Our people were, however, too well aware of the advantage they derived from the schools not to be desirous of their re-establishment, which accordingly took place soon after our arrival at Igloolik; and they were glad to continue this as their evening occupation during the six succeeding months.
The year closed with the temperature of-42°, the mean of the month of December having been 27° 8', which, taken in connexion with that of November, led us to expect a severe winter.
About the middle of the month of December several of the Esquimaux had moved from the huts at Igloolik, some taking up their quarters on the ice at a considerable distance to the northwest, and the rest about a mile outside the summer station of the tents. At the close of the year from fifty to sixty individuals had thus decamped, their object being, like that of other savages on terra firma, to increase their means of subsistence by covering more ground; their movements were arranged so quietly that we seldom heard of their intentions till they were gone. At the new stations they lived entirely in huts of snow; and the northerly and easterly winds were considered by them most favourable for their fishing, as these served to bring in the loose ice, on which they principally kill the walruses.
Towards the latter end of January [1823], the accounts from the huts, as well from the Esquimaux as from our own people, concurred in stating that the number of the sick, as well as the seriousness of their complaints, was rapidly increasing there. We had, indeed, scarcely heard of the illness of a woman named Kei-m=o=o-seuk, who, it seemed, had lately miscarried, when an account arrived of her death. She was one of the two wives of Ooyarra, one of Captain Lyon's fellow-travellers in the summer, who buried her in the snow, about two hundred yards from the huts, placing slabs of the same perishable substance over the body, and cementing them by pouring a little water in the interstices. Such an interment was not likely to be a very secure one; and, accordingly, a few days after, the hungry dogs removed the snow and devoured the body.
Captain Lyon gave me the following account of the death and burial of another poor woman and her child:
"The mother, Poo-too-alook, was about thirty-five years of age, the child about three years—yet not weaned, and a female; there was also another daughter, Shega, about twelve or thirteen years of age, who, as well as her father, was a most attentive nurse. My hopes were but small, as far as concerned the mother; but the child was so patient that I hoped, from its docility, soon to accustom it to soups and nourishing food, as its only complaint was actual starvation. I screened off a portion of my cabin, and arranged some bedding for them, in the same manner as the Esquimaux do their own. Warm broth, dry bedding, and a comfortable cabin, did wonders before evening, and our medical men gave me great hopes. As an introduction to a system of cleanliness, and preparatory to washing the sick, who were in a most filthy state, I scrubbed Shega and her father from head to foot, and dressed them in new clothes. During the night I persuaded both mother and child, who were very restless, and constantly moaning, to take a few spoonfuls of soup. On the morning of the 24th the woman appeared considerably improved, and she both spoke and ate a little. As she was covered with so thick a coating of dirt that it could be taken off in scales, I obtained her assent to wash her face and hands a little before noon. The man and his daughter now came to my table to look at some things I had laid out to amuse them; and, after a few minutes, Shega lifted up the curtain to look at her mother, when she again let it fall, and tremblingly told us she was dead.
"The husband sighed heavily, the daughter burst into tears, and the poor little infant made the moment more distressing by calling in a plaintive tone on its mother, by whose side it was lying. I determined on burying the woman on shore, and the husband was much pleased at my promising that the body should be drawn on a sledge by men instead of dogs; for, to our horror, Takkeelikkeeta had told me that dogs had eaten part of Keimooseuk, and that, when he left the huts with his wife, one was devouring the body as he passed it.
"Takkeelikkeeta now prepared to dress the dead body, and, in the first place, stopped his nose with deer's hair and put on his gloves, seeming unwilling that his naked hand should come in contact with the corpse. I observed, in this occupation, his care that every article of dress should be as carefully placed as when his wife was living; and, having drawn the boots on the wrong legs, he pulled them off again and put them properly. This ceremony finished, the deceased was sewed up in a hammock, and, at the husband's urgent request, her face was left uncovered. An officer who was present at the time agreed with me in fancying that the man, from his words and actions, intimated a wish that the living child might be enclosed with its mother. We may have been mistaken, but there is an equal probability that we were right in our conjecture; for, according to Crantz and Egede, the Greenlanders were in the habit of burying their motherless infants, from a persuasion that they must otherwise starve to death, and also from being unable to bear the cries of the little ones while lingering for several days without sustenance; for no woman will give them any share of their milk, which they consider as the exclusive property of their own offspring. My dogs being carefully tied up at the man's request, a party of our people, accompanied by me, drew the body to the shore, where we made a grave, about a foot deep, being unable to get lower on account of the frozen earth. The body was placed on its back, at the husband's request, and he then stepped into the grave and cut all the stitches of the hammock, although without throwing it open, seeming to imply that the dead should be left unconfined. I laid a woman's knife by the side of the body, and we filled up the grave, over which we also piled a quantity of heavy stones, which no animal could remove. When all was done and we returned to the ship, the man lingered a few minutes behind us and repeated two or three sentences, as if addressing himself to his departed wife; he then silently followed. We found Shega quite composed, and attending her little sister, between whose eyebrows she had made a spot with soot, which I learned was because, being unweaned, it must certainly die. During the night my little charge called on its mother without intermission, yet the father slept as soundly until morning as if nothing had happened.
"All who saw my patient on the morning of the 25th gave me great hopes; she could swallow easily, and was even strong enough to turn or sit upright without assistance, and in the forenoon slept very soundly. At noon, the sister of the deceased, Ootooguak, with her husband and son, came to visit me. She had first gone to the Fury, and was laughing on deck, and, at her own request, was taken below, not caring to hurry herself to come to the house of mourning. Even when she came to the Hecla she was in high spirits, laughing and capering on deck as if nothing had happened; but, on being shown to my cabin, where Shega, having heard of her arrival, was sitting crying in readiness, she began with her niece to howl most wofully. I, however, put a stop to this ceremony, for such it certainly was, under the plea of disturbing the child. The arrival of a pot of smoking walrus-flesh soon brought smiles on all faces but that of Takkeelikkeeta, who refused food and sat sighing deeply; the others ate, chatted, and laughed as if nothing but eating was worth thinking of. Dinner being over, I received thanks for burying the woman in such a way that 'neither wolves, dogs, nor foxes could dig her up and eat her,' for all were full of the story of Keimooseuk, and even begged some of our officers to go to Igloolik and shoot the offending dogs. A young woman named Ablik, sister to Ooyarra, was induced, after much entreaty and a very large present of beads, to offer her breast to the sick child, but the poor little creature pushed it angrily away. Another woman was asked to do the same; but, although her child was half weaned, she flatly refused.
"The aunt of my little one seeming anxious to remain, and Shega being now alone, I invited her to stop the night. In the evening the child took meat and jelly, and sat up to help itself, but it soon after resumed its melancholy cry for its mother. At night my party had retired to sleep; yet I heard loud sighing occasionally, and, on lifting the curtain, I saw Takkeelikkeeta standing and looking mournfully at his child. I endeavoured to compose him, and he promised to go to bed; but, hearing him again sighing in a few minutes, I went and found the poor infant was dead, and that its father had been some time aware of it. He now told me it had seen its mother the last time it called on her, and that she had beckoned it to Khil-la (Heaven), on which it instantly died. He said it was 'good' that the child was gone; that no children outlived their mothers; and that the black spot, which Shega had frequently renewed, was quite sufficient to ensure the death of the infant.
"My party made a hearty breakfast on the 26th, and I observed they did not scruple to lay the vessel containing the meat on the dead child, which I had wrapped in a blanket; and this unnatural table excited neither disgust nor any other feeling among them more than a block of wood could have done. We now tied up all the dogs, as Takkeelikkeeta had desired, and took the child about a quarter of a mile astern of the ships, to bury it in the snow; for the father assured me that her mother would cry in her grave if any weight of stones or earth pressed on her infant. She herself, he feared, had already felt pain from the monument of stones which we had laid upon her. The snow in which we dug the child's grave was not above a foot deep, yet we were not allowed to cut into the ice, or even use any slabs of it in constructing the little tomb. The body, wrapped in a blanket, and having the face uncovered, being placed, the father put the slings by which its deceased mother had carried it on the right side, and, in compliance with the Esquimaux custom of burying toys and presents with their dead, I threw in some beads. A few loose slabs of snow were now placed so as to cover, without touching, the body, and with this very slight sepulchre the father was contented, although a fox could have dug through it in half a minute. We, however, added more snow, and cemented all by pouring about twenty buckets of water, which were brought from the ship, on every part of the mound. I remarked that, before our task was completed, the man turned and walked quietly to the ships.
"During the last two days I obtained some information with respect to mourning ceremonies, or, at all events, such as related to the loss of a mother of a family; three days were to be passed by the survivors without their walking on the ice, performing any kind of work, or even having anything made for them. Washing is out of the question with Esquimaux at most times, but now I was not allowed to perform the necessary ablutions of their hands and faces, however greasy or dirty they might be made by their food; the girl's hair was not to be put into pig-tails, and everything was neglected; Takkeelikkeeta was not to go sealing until the summer. With the exception of an occasional sigh from the man, there were no more signs of grief; our mourners ate, drank, and were merry, and no one would have supposed they ever had wife, mother, or sister. When the three days (and it is singular that such should be the time) were expired, the man was to visit the grave; and, having talked with his wife, all duties were to be considered as over. The 28th was our third day, but a heavy northerly gale and thick drift prevented our visiting the grave. The 29th, although not fine, was more moderate, and I accompanied him at an early hour. Arriving at the grave, he anxiously walked up to it and carefully sought for foot-tracks on the snow; but, finding none, repeated to himself, 'No wolves, no dogs, no foxes; thank ye, thank ye.' He now began a conversation, which he directed entirely to his wife. He called her twice by name, and twice told her how the wind was blowing, looking at the same time in the direction from whence the drift was coming. He next broke forth into a low monotonous chant, and, keeping his eyes fixed upon the grave, walked slowly round it in the direction of the sun four or five times, and at each circuit he stopped a few moments at the head. His song was, however, uninterrupted. At the expiration of about eight minutes he stopped, and, suddenly turning round to me, exclaimed, 'Tugw~a' (that's enough), and began walking back to the ship. In the song he chanted I could frequently distinguish the word Koyenna (thank you), and it was occasionally coupled with the Kabloonas. Two other expressions, both the names of the spirits or familiars of the Annatko, Toolemak, were used a few times; but the whole of the other words were perfectly unintelligible to me.
"I now sent Shega and her father home, well clothed and in good case. The week they had passed on board was sufficient time to gain them the esteem of every one, for they were the most quiet, inoffensive beings I ever met with; and, to their great credit, they never once begged. The man was remarkable for his extraordinary fondness for treacle, sugar, salt, acids, and spruce-beer, which the others of the tribe could not even smell without disgust; and he walked about to the different messes in hopes of being treated with these delicacies. Shega was a timid, well-behaved girl, and generally remained eating in my cabin, for I am confident of speaking far within bounds when I say she got through eight pounds of solids per diem. As far as gratitude could be shown by Esquimaux, which is saying 'koyenna' on receiving a present, my friends were sensible of the attentions I had shown them."
March 5th.—The Esquimaux were about this time rather badly off for food, in consequence of the winds having of late been unfavourable for their fishery; but this had only occurred two or three times in the course of the winter, and never so much as to occasion any great distress. It is certain, indeed, that the quantity of meat which they procured between the 1st of October and the 1st of April was sufficient to furnish about double the population of working people who were moderate eaters, and had any idea of providing for a future day; but to individuals who can demolish four or five pounds at a sitting, and at least ten in the course of a day,[003] and who never bestow a thought on to-morrow, at least with a view to provide for it by economy, there is scarcely any supply which could secure them from occasional scarcity. It is highly probable that the alternate feasting and fasting to which the gluttony and improvidence of these people so constantly subject them, may have occasioned many of the complaints that proved fatal during the winter; and on this account we hardly knew whether to rejoice or not at the general success of their fishery. Certain it is, that on a particular occasion of great plenty, one or two individuals were seen lying in the huts, so distended by the quantity of meat they had eaten that they were unable to move, and were suffering considerable pain, arising solely from this cause. Indeed, it is difficult to assign any other probable reason for the lamentable proportion of deaths that took place during our stay at Igloolik, while, during a season of nearly equal severity, and of much greater privation as to food, at Winter Island, not a single death occurred. Notwithstanding their general plenty, there were times in the course of this winter, as well as the last, when our bread-dust was of real service to them, and they were always particularly desirous of obtaining it for their younger children. They distinguished this kind of food by the name of k=an~ibr~o~ot, and biscuit or soft bread by that of sh=eg~al~ak, the literal meaning of which terms we never could discover, but supposed them to have some reference to their respective qualities.
Our lengthened acquaintance with the Esquimaux and their language, which a second winter passed among them afforded, gave us an opportunity of occasionally explaining to them in some measure in what direction our country lay, and of giving them some idea of its distance, climate, population, and productions. It was with extreme difficulty that these people had imbibed any correct idea of the superiority of rank possessed by some individuals among us; and when at length they came into this idea, they naturally measured our respective importance by the riches they supposed each to possess. The ships they considered, as a matter of course, to belong to Captain Lyon and myself, and on this account distinguished them by the names of Lyon-oomiak and Paree-oomiak; but they believed that the boats and other parts of the furniture were the property of various other individuals among us. They were, therefore, not a little surprised to be seriously assured that neither the one nor the other belonged to any of us, but to a much richer and more powerful person, to whom we all paid respect and obedience, and at whose command we had come to visit and enrich the Innuees. Ewerat, on account of his steadiness and intelligence, as well as the interest with which he listened to anything relating to Kabloonas, was particularly fit to receive information of this nature; and a general chart of the Atlantic Ocean, and of the lands on each side, immediately conveyed to his mind an idea of the distance we had come, and the direction in which our home lay. This and similar information was received by Ewerat and his wife with the most eager astonishment and interest, not merely displayed in the "hei-ya!" which constitutes the usual extent of Esquimaux admiration, but evidently enlarging their notion respecting the other parts of the world, and creating in them ideas which could never before have entered their minds. By way of trying their inclinations, I asked them if they would consent to leave their own country, and, taking with them their children, go to live in ours, where they would see no more Innuees, and never eat any more seal or walrus. To all this they willingly agreed, and with an earnestness that left no doubt of their sincerity; Togolat adding, in an emphatic manner, "Shagloo ooagoot nao" (we do not tell a falsehood), an expression of peculiar force among them. The eagerness with which they assented to this proposal made me almost repent my curiosity, and I was glad to get out of the scrape by saying, that the great personage of whom I had spoken would not be pleased at my taking them home without having first obtained his permission. Information of the kind alluded to was subsequently given to many of the other Esquimaux, some of whom could at length pronounce the name of "King George" so as to be tolerably intelligible.
The weather was now so pleasant, and the temperature in the sun so comfortable to the feelings when a shelter could be found from the wind, that we set up various games for the people, such as cricket, football, and quoits, which some of them played for many hours during the day.
At the close of the month of March, we were glad to find that its mean temperature, being-19.75°, when taken in conjunction with those of January and February, appeared to constitute a mild winter for this latitude. There were, besides, some other circumstances, which served to distinguish this winter from any preceding one we had passed in the ice. One of the most remarkable of these was the frequent occurrence of hard, well-defined clouds, a feature we had hitherto considered as almost unknown in the winter sky of the Polar Regions. It is not improbable that these may have, in part, owed their origin to a large extent of sea keeping open to the southeastward throughout the winter, though they not only occurred with the wind from that quarter, but also with the colder weather, usually accompanying northwesterly breezes. About the time of the sun's reappearance, and for a week or two after it, these clouds were not more a subject of admiration to us on account of their novelty, than from the glowing richness of the tints with which they were adorned. It is, indeed, scarcely possible for nature, in any climate, to produce a sky exhibiting greater splendour and richness of colouring than we at times experienced in the course of this spring. The edges of the clouds near the sun often presented a fiery or burning appearance, while the opposite side of the heavens was distinguished by a deep purple about the horizon, gradually softening upward into a warm yet delicate rose-colour of inconceivable beauty. These phenomena have always impressed us the most forcibly about the time of the sun's permanent setting and that of his reappearance, especially the latter, and have invariably furnished a particular subject of conversation to us at those periods; but I do not know whether this is to be attributed so much to the colouring of the sky exactly at the times alluded to, as to our habit of setting on every enjoyment a value proportioned to its scarceness and novelty.
Another peculiarity observed in this winter was the rare occurrence of the Aurora Borealis, and the extraordinary poorness of its display whenever it did make its appearance. It was almost invariably seen to the southward, between an E.S.E. and a W.S.W. bearing, generally low, the stationary patches of it having a tendency to form an irregular arch, and not unfrequently with coruscations shooting towards the zenith. When more diffused it still kept, in general, on the southern side of the zenith; but never exhibited any of those rapid and complicated movements observed in the course of the preceding winter, nor, indeed, any feature that renders it necessary to attempt a particular description. The electrometer was frequently tried, by Mr. Fisher, at times when the state of the atmosphere appeared the most favourable, but always without any sensible effect being produced on the gold leaf.
The difference in the temperature of the day and night began to be sensible as early as the first week in March, and the daily range of the thermometer increased considerably from that time. The increase in the average temperature of the atmosphere, however, is extremely slow in these regions, long after the sun has attained a considerable meridian altitude; but this is in some degree compensated by the inconceivable rapidity with which the days seem to lengthen when once the sun has reappeared. There is, indeed, no change which continues to excite so much surprise as that from almost constant darkness to constant day; and this is, of course, the more sudden and striking, in proportion to the height of the latitude. Even in this comparatively low parallel, the change seemed sufficiently remarkable; for, soon after the middle of March, only ten weeks after the sun's reappearance above the horizon, a bright twilight appeared at midnight in the northern heavens.
Various Journeys to the Esquimaux Stations.—Preparations for the Hecla's Return to England.—Remarkable Halos, &c.—Shooting Parties stationed at Arlagnuk.—Journeys to Quilliam Creek.—Arrival of Esquimaux from the Northward.—Account of a Journey to the Westward for the purpose of reaching the Polar Sea.—The Esquimaux report two Fishing-ships having been Wrecked.—A Journey performed to Cockburn Island.—Discovery of Murray Maxwell Inlet.
About the first and second weeks in April, the Esquimaux were in the habit of coming up the inlet, to the southward of the ships, to kill the neitiek, or small seal, which brings forth its young at this season, and probably retires into sheltered places for that purpose. Besides the old seals, which were taken in the manner before explained, the Esquimaux also caught a great number of young ones, by fastening a hook to the end of a staff, and hooking them up from the sea-hole after the mother had been killed. Our large fishhooks were useful to them for this purpose, and the beautiful silvery skins of these young animals were occasionally brought to the ships as articles of barter: those of the foetus of the neitiek are more yellow than the others, and, indeed, both in colour and texture, very much resemble raw silk.
The first ducks noticed by the Esquimaux were mentioned to us on the 16th, and a few days afterward immense flocks appeared, all of the king-duck species, about the open water near the margin of the ice; but our distance from this was so great, that we never saw any of them, and the weather was yet too cold to station a shooting-party in that neighbourhood. Dovekies were now also numerous, and a gull or two, of the silvery species, had been seen.
On the 20th, after divine service, I took the opportunity of Captain Lyon and his people being on board the Fury, to communicate to the assembled officers and ships' companies my intentions respecting the future movements of the expedition; at the same time requesting Captain Lyon to furnish me with a list of any of the Hecla's men that might volunteer to remain out, as it would be necessary to fill up, or, perhaps, even to increase the complement of the Fury.
Our preparations were therefore immediately commenced, a twelvemonths' provision and other stores being received by the Fury, and various necessary exchanges made in anchors, cables, and boats; and, in the course of a single fortnight, the whole of these were transported from ship to ship without any exposure or labour to the men outside their respective ships, our invaluable dogs having performed it for us with astonishing ease and expedition. It was a curious sight to watch these useful animals walking off with a bower-anchor, a boat, or a topmast, without any difficulty; and it may give some idea of what they are able to perform, to state, that nine dogs of Captain Lyon's dragged sixteen hundred and eleven pounds a distance of seventeen hundred and fifty yards in nine minutes, and that they worked in a similar way between the ships for seven or eight hours a day. The road was, however, very good at this time, and the dogs the best that could be procured.
The wind settling to the southward for a few days near the end of April, brought an increased, and, to us a comfortable degree of warmth; and it was considered an event of some interest, that the snow which fell on the 29th dissolved as it lay on our decks, being the first time that it had done so this season. We now also ventured to take off some of the hatches for an hour or two in the day, and to admit some fresh air, a luxury which we had not known for six months. The Esquimaux, about this time, began to separate more than before, according to their usual custom in the spring; some of them, and especially our Winter Island acquaintance, setting off to the little islands called Oolglit, and those in our neighbourhood removing to the northeast end of Igloolik, to a peninsula called Keiyuk-tarruoke, to which, the open water was somewhat nearer. These people now became so much incommoded by the melting of their snow-huts, that they were obliged to substitute skins as the roofs, retaining, however, the sides and part of the passages of the original habitations. These demi-tents were miserable enough while in this state, some of the snow continually falling in, and the floor being constantly wet by its thawing.
Favourable as the first part of the month of May had appeared with respect to temperature, its close was by no means equally promising, and on the first of June, at two A.M., the thermometer stood at +8°. This unusually low temperature, much exceeding in severity anything we had experienced at Melville Island at the same season, rendered it necessary to defer for a time a journey which it was proposed that Captain Lyon should undertake, across the land to the westward at the head of Quilliam Creek, and thence, by means of the ice, along the shores of the Polar Sea, in the direction towards Akkoolee. The object of this journey, like that of most of the others which had been performed in various directions, was to acquire all the information within our reach of those parts of the continental coast to which the ships were denied access; and it was hoped that, at the coming season, some judgment might be formed of the probable state of the ice along that shore in the summer, by which the future movements of the Fury might be influenced. Captain Lyon was to be accompanied by two men, and a complete supply of every kind for a month's travelling was to be drawn on a sledge by ten excellent dogs, which he had taken great pains to procure and train for such occasions. As I was desirous of ascertaining, beyond any doubt, the identity of the Khemig, to which I had sailed in the autumn, with that seen by Captain Lyon on his journey with the Esquimaux, I determined to accompany the travellers on my sledge as far as the head of Quilliam Creek, and by victualling them thus far on their journey, enable them to gain a day or two's resources in advance. Another object which I had in view was to endeavour to find a lake mentioned by Toolemak; who assured me that, if I could dig holes in the ice, which was five feet thick, plenty of large salmon might be caught with hooks, an experiment which seemed at least well worth the trying.
On the 7th, the weather being more favourable than before, Captain Lyon and myself set out to the westward at half past eleven A.M., and the ice proving level, reached Khemig at half past five; when it was satisfactory to find that the route followed by Captain Lyon on his journey with Toolemak was precisely that which I had supposed, every feature of the land, of which the fog had before scarcely allowed him a glimpse, being now easily recognised, and every difficulty cleared up. Proceeding at eight A.M. on the 8th, we soon met with numerous tracks of deer upon the ice, which, together with the seals that lay in great numbers near their holes, expedited our journey very considerably, the dogs frequently setting off at full gallop on sniffing one of them. Landing at the head of Quilliam Creek at half past one, we took up an advantageous position for looking about us, in order to determine on the direction of Captain Lyon's route over land, which all the Esquimaux concurred in representing as a laborious one. We met with several reindeer immediately on our landing; and, while in pursuit of them, Captain Lyon discovered a lake two or three miles long and a quarter of a mile broad, a short distance from the tents, which we concluded to be that of which I was in search. As some of our party were suffering from snow-blindness, and, what is scarcely less painful, severe inflammation of the whole face, occasioned by the heat of the sun, we remained here for the rest of this day to make our final arrangements.
At nine A.M. on: the 9th we struck the tents, and Captain Lyon set off to the southward, while we drove over to the lake, which is one mile N.N.W. of the head of the creek, and, after three or four hours' labour, completed a hole through the ice, which was very dark-coloured, brittle, and transparent, and, as Toolemak had said, about five feet thick. The water, which was eleven fathoms deep, flowed up within a couple of inches of the surface, over which lay a covering of snow eighteen inches in depth. In confident hope of now obtaining some fish, we proceeded exactly according to Toolemak's instructions; but, after four-and-twenty hours' trial at all depths, not even a single nibble rewarded our labour.
Coasting the south shore, on which I wished to obtain observations and angles for the survey, we the next day entered a small bay, where we pitched our tent; our whole party being now so snow-blind with endeavouring to distinguish the land from the ice (so entirely were both covered with snow), that we could literally no longer muster one eye among three of us to direct the sledge. I found a handkerchief tied close, but not too tightly, round the eyes for a whole night, to be a more effectual remedy for this disagreeable complaint than any application of eyewater; and my companions being induced to try the same experiment, derived equal benefit from it. Reaching Arlagnuk towards evening of the 13th, we found that our parties had each thirty or forty ducks ready for the ships; and that the Esquimaux had lately altogether deserted this station, owing to the scarcity of walruses, and had removed to Ooglit, where these animals were said to be abundant at this season. Leaving our people on the morning of the 14th, I returned on board soon after noon, where I found that nothing worthy of particular notice had occurred during my absence.
On the 20th three or four other Esquimaux, strangers to us, arrived at Igloolik from the northward, and we found from two young men who visited us on the following day, that they came from Too-n=o=o-nek, a place undoubtedly situated somewhere on the western coast of Baffin's Bay, or about some of the inlets communicating with it, as they had there seen several Kabloona ships employed in killing whales. It is not improbable, from the various accounts of the direction and distance of Toonoonek, communicated by the Esquimaux through the usual medium of their charts, that the part of the seacoast so named lies at no great distance from Pond's Bay, in lat. 72-1/2°, which has lately become a common rendezvous of our Davis's Strait fishermen. Of this fact we had, in the course of the winter, received intimation from these people from time to time, and had even some reason to believe that our visit to the Esquimaux of the River Clyde in 1820 was known to them; but what most excited our interest at this time was the sledge brought by the new comers, the runner being composed of large single pieces of wood, one of them painted black over a lead-coloured priming, and the cross-bars consisting of heading-pieces of oak-buts, one flat board with a hinge-mark upon it the upper end of a skid or small boat's davit, and others that had evidently and recently been procured from some ship. On one of the heading-pieces we distinguished the letters Brea—, showing that the cask had, according to the custom of the whalers, contained bread on the outward passage. The nature of all these materials led us to suppose that it must have been procured from some vessel wrecked or damaged on the coast; and this suspicion was on the following day confirmed by our obtaining information that, at a place called Akk=o=odneak, a single day's journey beyond Toonoonek, two ships like ours had been driven on shore by the ice, and that the people had gone away in boats equipped for the purpose, leaving one ship on her beam ends, and the other upright, in which situation the vessels were supposed still to remain.[004]
We observed on this occasion as on our first arrival at Igloolik, that the new Esquimaux were obliged to have recourse to the others to interpret to them our meaning, which circumstance, as it still appeared to me, was to be attributed, as before, to our speaking a kind of broken Esquimaux that habit had rendered familiar to our old acquaintance, rather than to any essential difference in the true languages of the two people.
Toolemak having some time before promised to accompany me to the fishing-place, taking with him his wife, together with his sledge, dogs, and tent, made his appearance from Ooglit on the 23d, bringing, however, only the old lady and abundance of meat. Having lent him a tent and two of our dogs, and hired others to complete his establishment, we set out together at five A.M. on the 24th, my own party consisting of Mr. Crozier and a seaman from each ship. Arriving at Khemig towards noon, we found among the islands that the ice was quite covered with water, owing, probably, to the radiation of heat from the rocks. The weather proved, indeed, intensely hot this day, the thermometer in the shade, at the ships, being as high as 51°, and the land in this neighbourhood preventing the access of wind from any quarter. The travelling being good beyond this, we arrived within four or five miles of the head of Quilliam Creek at ten P.M., where we pitched the tents for the night. In this day's journey ten dogs had drawn my sledge a distance of forty statute miles since the morning, the weight on the sledge being about twelve hundred pounds, and half of the road very indifferent. It is the custom of the Esquimaux, even when meat is most abundant, to feed these invaluable animals only once a day, and that in the evening, which they consider to agree with them better than more frequent meals; we always observed the same practice with ours, and found that they performed their journeys the better for it.
On the morning of the 25th, while passing close to a point of land, Toolemak suddenly stopped his sledge, and he and his wife walked to the shore, whither I immediately followed them. The old woman, preceding her husband, went up to a circle of stones, of which there were two or three on the spot, and, kneeling down within it, cried most loudly and bitterly for the space of two or three minutes, while Toolemak also shed abundant tears, but without any loud lamentation. On inquiring presently after, I found that this was the spot on which their tent had been pitched in the summer, and that the bed-place on which the old woman knelt had been that of their adopted son Noogloo, whose premature death we had all so much regretted. The grief displayed on this occasion seemed to have much sincerity in it, and there was something extremely touching in this quiet but unaffected tribute of sorrow on the spot, which so forcibly reminded them of the object of their parental affection. I have much gratification in adding, in this place, another circumstance, which, though trifling in itself, deserves to be noticed as doing honour to these people's hearts. They had always shown particular attachment to a dog they had sold me, and which bore the same name as a young man, a son of their own, whom they had formerly lost. In the course of this journey, the old woman would constantly call the dog "Eerninga" (son), which the affectionate animal never failed to repay by jumping up and licking her face all over, whenever his trace would allow him; and at night, after Toolemak had fed his own dogs, he frequently brought to our tent an extra piece of meat, expressly for Ann=owtalik, to whom these poor people seemed to take a mournful pleasure in now transferring their affection.
Landing close to the head of the inlet on the south shore, we proceeded with difficulty a couple of miles over land till we came to a river, the limits of which the warmth of the weather was just rendering discernible, and which, our guides informed us was to be our fishing place. It was interesting to observe that, in every case of doubt as to the situation of a place, the best route, or the most advisable method of overcoming any difficulty, Toolemak invariably referred to his wife; and a consultation of some minutes was held by these two before they would determine on what was to be done, or even return an answer to our questions respecting it. Pitching our tents upon the banks of the river, we went upon the ice, which was still quite solid except close to the shores, and soon made two or three holes for a hook and line, the thickness of the ice in the middle being from six to seven feet. The Esquimaux fishhook is generally composed of a piece of ivory, having a hook of pointed iron, without a barb, let into it. The ivory they consider useful in attracting the salmon, but they also bait the hook with a piece of blubber well cleared of its oil by chewing, and securely tied on with a thread of sinew, so as to cover nearly the whole of the hook. A small piece of bone, reindeer's horn, or wood, serves as a rod, and with this they keep the bait constantly in motion up and down, the bait being from one to three feet below the surface of the ice. Previous, however, to commencing the fishery, the old lady, who took the principal part in this employment, muttered some words, to me altogether incomprehensible, over the hole, to which Toolemak, in a formal manner, added something about fish and Kabloonas; and the whole of this preparatory ceremony seemed intended to propitiate the spirit to whose department the salmon particularly belonged. The lady (for it seems she is a female) did not, however, appear to lend a very favourable ear to our wants or Toolemak's rhetoric; for, after many hours' patient trial on this and the following day, only two fish were seen and one caught to repay our labour.
On the 27th Toolemak and his wife went over to a small shallow lake, on the opposite side of the river, where they caught three or four fish of the salmon kind, but none more than one pound in weight. He then came back to the tent, and made a small spear according to their own fashion; but with this, to his great disappointment, he could not strike a single fish. A sort of fish-gig, which we made out of four large hooks lashed back to back at the end of a light staff, succeeded much better, the bait being played in the usual manner to attract the fish, which were then hooked up with great ease and certainty by this instrument. In this manner we soon caught a dozen of the same kind as before; and the rest of our party had in the mean time killed a deer.
Toolemak began now to be extremely impatient to return home, his principal anxiety arising, I believe, from a childish desire to know what I should give him for his trouble; and when, in writing a note to Lieutenant Nias, I enumerated the articles I intended to present to him, he expressed more delight than I had ever before seen escape him. Among these was one of the rifle-guns supplied as presents, together with a sufficient quantity of ammunition to last him one summer, after which the gun would probably become useless itself for want of cleaning. It was astonishing to see the readiness with which these people learned to fire at a mark, and the tact they displayed in everything relating to this art. Boys from twelve to sixteen years of age would fire a fowling-piece, for the first time, with perfect steadiness; and the men, with very little practice, would very soon become superior marksmen.[005] As, however, the advantage they could derive from the use of firearms must be of very short duration, and the danger to any careless individuals very considerable, we did not, on any other occasion, consider it prudent to furnish them in this manner.
On the morning of the 28th Toolemak had left us for the ships, carrying with him our venison to be left there, and having first explained when and where the Esquimaux catch the fish with which he had supplied us the preceding summer; for it now appeared that they were not found in great abundance, or of that magnitude, in the river, but at the mouth of a very small stream about two miles lower down the creek on the same side. Their method is, to place in the bed of the stream, which is quite narrow, and seldom or never so deep as a man's middle, though running with great force, two or three separate piles of stones, which serve the double purpose of keeping off the force of the stream from themselves, and of narrowing the passage through which the fish have to pass in coming up from the sea to feed; thus giving the people an opportunity of striking them with their spears, and throwing them on the shore without much difficulty.
On the afternoon of the 1st of July we shifted our tents overland, and down the creek as far as the salmon stream. In performing this short journey over bare ground, I was enabled to form some conception of the difficulties likely to be encountered by Captain Lyon and his companions; for, even with our light load, the dogs could scarcely move at times. One of the strongest of eleven fell down in a fit occasioned by over exertion; the poor animal lay on his side, foaming at the mouth for a minute or two, but soon recovered sufficiently to be able to walk; and, being taken out of the sledge, was quite strong again the next day. We had scarcely arrived at the stream, when Toolemak's account was very satisfactorily confirmed by our finding on the ice near its mouth part of two fine salmon, above two feet in length, that had been thrown up by the force of the torrent, and a similar one was seen in the water. Our provisions being now out, we prepared for returning to the ships the following day; and I determined in a short time to send out Mr. Crozier with a larger party, well equipped with everything necessary for procuring us both fish and deer. We therefore left our tent, spare ammunition, and various other articles that would be required here, buried under a heap of stones near the stream, and on the morning of the 2d set out for the ships. The change which one week had made upon the ice it is quite impossible to conceive, the whole surface being now checkered with large and deep pools of water, where not a symptom of thawing had before appeared. This continued the whole way to the ships, which we reached at eight P.M., finding Captain Lyon and his party returned, after a laborious but unsuccessful endeavour to penetrate overland to the westward. On my arrival at the ships I found several new Esquimaux on board, who, to the number of twenty, had lately arrived from Toon=o=onee-r=o=ochiuk, a place situated to the westward and northward of Igloolik, and somewhere upon the opposite coast of Cockburn Island. This party confirmed the former account respecting the two ships that had been forced on shore; and, indeed, as an earnest of its truth, one man named Adloo, who was said to have actually seen them in this state, was a day or two afterward met by our people at Arlagnuk, while travelling to the southward, and having on his sledge a great deal of wood of the same kind as that before described.
This information having excited considerable interest, Lieutenant Hoppner, who had taken great pains to ascertain the facts correctly, volunteered his services to accompany some of the Esquimaux, who were said to be going northward very shortly, and to obtain every information on this and other subjects which might be within the scope of such a journey. On the night of the 4th, having heard that a party of the Esquimaux intended setting out the following morning, Lieutenant Hoppner and his people went out to their tents to be in readiness to accompany them. We were surprised to find the next day, that not only Lieutenant Hoppner's intended guide, but the whole of the rest of these people, had altogether left the island, and, as it afterward proved, permanently for the summer. We were now, therefore, for the first time since our arrival here, entirely deserted by the natives, only two or three of whom again visited the ships during the remainder of our stay. It appears probable, indeed, that these wandering people are in the habit of residing at their various stations only at particular intervals of time, perhaps with the intention of not scaring the walruses and seals too much by a very long residence at one time upon the same spot. What made this appear still more likely was the present state of their winter habitations at Igloolik, which, though offensive enough at about the same time the preceding year, were then wholesome and comfortable in comparison. Besides quantities of putrid walrus flesh, blubber, and oil, carcasses of dogs, and even of human beings recently deceased, were now to be seen exposed in their neighbourhood. What remained of the corpse of Keim=o=oseuk was of course wholly uncovered; a second, of a child, on which the wolves had feasted, was also lying about; and a third, of a newly-born infant, was discovered in the middle of a small lake by Mr. Richards, who caused them all to be buried under ground.
Our stock of meat for the dogs being nearly expended, and no seahorses having yet been seen near the shore, I sent Mr. Ross with a sledge to Tern Island on the 13th, in expectation of being supplied by the Esquimaux. Mr. Ross returned on the 14th without success, the whole of the natives having left the island after plundering the birds' nests, as they had done the preceding year.
Finding that our valuable dogs must be now wholly dependant on our own exertions in providing meat, a boat from each ship was carried down to the neighbourhood of the open water, and shortly afterward two others, to endeavour to kill walruses for them. This was the more desirable from the probability of the Fury's passing her next winter where no natives were resident, and the consequent necessity of laying in our stock for that long and dreary season during the present summer. Our people, therefore, pitched their tents near the old Esquimaux habitations; and thus were four boats constantly employed, whenever the weather would permit, for the three succeeding weeks.
On the 16th Lieutenant Hoppner and his party returned to the ships, having only been enabled to travel to the south shore of Cockburn Island, on account of their guides not yet proceeding any farther. Two of the Esquimaux accompanied our travellers back to Igloolik, and, being loaded with various useful presents from the ships, returned home the following day.