﻿1848. ENCLOSED BY ICE. 305 



good deer-stalkers suffered to go out, there would 

 be a danger of the animals migrating from feeding- 

 grounds on which they were much disturbed. 

 With nets a large quantity of salmon and other fish 

 might be captured in Dolphin and Union Straits, 

 and doubtless also in the various channels sepa- 

 rating the islands ; with percussion guns we had no 

 difficulty in killing seals, and we might, had we 

 chosen, have slain hundreds, though, as they dive at 

 the flash, the chance of shooting them with a ship's 

 musket having an ordinary lock, would be greatly 

 diminished. Swans, snow geese, brentgeese, eiders, 

 king ducks, cacawees, and several other waterfowl, 

 breed in immense numbers on the islands; and the 

 old ones when moulting, and the young before they 

 are fledged, fall an easy prey to a swift runner, and 

 still more surely to a party hemming them in and 

 cutting off their retreat. 



To people acquainted with the Eskimo methods of 

 building ice and snow houses, shelter may be raised 

 on the bleakest coast, except in the autumn months ; 

 but, unless blubber were used as fuel, there would 

 be a difficulty in maintaining fire for cooking by. 

 any one who has not the genius for turning every 

 thing to account which Mr. Rae evinced, when he 

 boldly adventured on wintering on a coast bearing 

 the ominous appellation of Repulse Bay, with no 

 other fuel than the Andromeda tetragona, — an inte- 



VOL. I. X 



