Aug. 1858. SCARCITY OF WOOD. 139 



We were of course greatly surprised to find that Dr. Rae's 

 visit to Repulse Bay was known to this distant tribe ; and 

 also disappointed to find they had heard nothing of Franklin's 

 Back River parties through the same channel of communica- 

 tion. They were anxiously and repeatedly questioned, but 

 evidently had not heard of any other white people to the 

 westward, nor of their having perished there. 



Ow-wang-noot lived at Igloolik in his early days, and 

 made a chart of the lands adjacent, but said he was so young 

 at the time that " it seemed like a dream to him." He was 

 acquainted with Ee-noo-166-apik, the Esquimaux who once 

 accompanied Captain Penny to Aberdeen, and told us he 

 had died, lately I think, at a place to the southward called 

 Kri-merk-su-malek, but that his sister still lives at Igloolik. 



Although they told us the Igloolik people were worse off 

 for wood than they were themselves, yet it was evident that 

 here also it is very scarce. We could not spare them light 

 poles or oars such as they were most desirous to obtain for 

 harpoon and lance staves and tent-poles ; and they would 

 willingly have bartered their kayaks to us for rifles (having 

 already obtained some from the whaling-ships), but that they 

 had no other means of getting back to their homes, nor 

 wood to make the light framework of others. 



They collect whalebone and narwhals' horns in sufficient 

 quantity to carry on a small barter with the whalers. 

 A-wah-lah showed us about thirty horns in his tent, and said 

 he had many more at other stations. A few years ago, when 

 first this bartering sprang up, an Esquimaux took such a 

 fancy to a fiddle that he offered a large quantity of whale- 

 bone in exchange for it. The bargain was soon made, and 

 subsequently this whalebone was sold for upwards of a 

 hundred pounds ! Each successive year, when the same 

 ship returns to Pond's Bay, this native comes on board to 

 visit his friends, and goes on shore with many presents in 



