352 FOUR YEARS IN THE WHITE NORTH 



engaged our attention. The first seals we had seen 

 upon the ice lay basking in the golden sunshine — eight 

 of them; Esayoo and E-took-a-shoo tried for them, but 

 with no success. Though fresh bear tracks were numer- 

 ous, we saw none of these "brethren of the icebergs." 

 A snowy owl swooped for a lemming scurrying across the 

 snow, but failed to get him. Spring was coming into the 

 Northland, and life was everywhere stirring actively 

 about again. 



The large number of musk-oxen in this new land and 

 the evidence of abundant game along Greely Fjord en- 

 couraged us to expect little difficulty as far as food was 

 concerned; but when we started up Greely Fjord we 

 could not help feeling somewhat doubtful as to the going. 

 The snow was very deep, and so soft that it balled up 

 badly between the dogs' toes. For two days we snow- 

 shoed beside our sledges. Then the going got better, 

 for as we neared the head of the fjord the surface was 

 hard enough to bear the weight of the dogs and sledges, 

 because the wind had packed the snow more. We killed 

 no game, for the sides of the fjord were almost pre- 

 cipitous walls of gray and brown sandstone and gray 

 and blue limestone, so that we could not readily see 

 over onto the hills. 



A small narrow fjord opens into Greely Fjord on the 

 south side. At the head of this little fjord a large 

 glacier comes down from the ice-cap, but does not quite 

 reach the sea. On the north side of the fjord we dis- 

 covered the mouth of a large fjord, so cut off by pro- 

 jecting capes that we could not see more than a few miles 

 into it. Near the mouth we killed two musk-oxen for 

 dog food, and made camp. With rare good luck, I 

 found that we had made our kill on a richly fossiliferous 



