44 MAItlON EXPEDITION TO DAVIS STRAIT AND BAFFIN BAY 



Sound, and from the fast ice formed locally around the shores of 

 Baffin Bay. The floes converge as they feed into the narrow neck of 

 Davis Strait, and passing out to the south, relievo the congestion in 

 the upper waters. 



If large quantities of fast ice break up in ^Melville Bay, and if the 

 winds drive across additional masses, the navigation that particular 

 spring and summer will be greatly hampered, and the only means of 

 proceeding northward in such a year is to hug the Greenland shore 

 to Cape York, hence to steer westward. There are records of ships 

 which required several weeks to make the passage under conditions 

 such as these, or even suffered the misfortune of becoming nipped in 

 the pack.-® If little ice is formed or if the normal amount fails to 

 break out of Melville Bay. Smith Sound, and the xVrctic Archipelago, 

 the pack will be of small extent and the so-called Xorth Water will 

 enlarge. In sucli years whale ships have reported crossing Melville 

 Bay in tlie incredibly short time of *J0 hours. The pack-ice cover 

 normally is believed to hll four-Hfths of Baffin Bay, with an area about 

 105,000 square miles, and often it is so extensive that it reaches over 

 to the west coast of Greenland in some places north of Davis Strait.-'' 

 In occasional winters pack ice is said to fill Baffin Bay solidly from 

 shore to shore.-"' 



The Baffin Bay })ack has its greatest extent in March and its least 

 in August and September. In some winters the ice area may grow to 

 a size that completely fills Baffin Bay, while in other years polynyas 

 are numerous and extensive; for example, off Smith Sound, Jones 

 Sound, and Lancaster Sound. Lancaster Sound is, however, occa- 

 sionally frozen solidly from shore to shore,'^ but at such times even 

 the natives deem any attempt to cross to North Devon an extremely 

 luizardous undertaking because a sudden shift of the Avinds or 

 the currents may break the bridge. The neighborhood of Cape AVar- 

 rander on Lancaster Sound is said to have more o])en water than 

 any other locality in Baffin Bay. But only a short distance farther 

 west Barrow Strait becomes covered as early as September. Baffin 

 Bay has never been crossed by sledge but numy experienced ex- 

 plorers have held the opinion that such a feat would be possible dur- 

 ing an exceptionally icy winter. It is of interest to learn also that 

 the ice cover of Baffin Bay is more or less completely renewed every 

 year. 



One of the most widely discussed features of Baffin Bay is the 

 ice-free area at its head called Xorth Water. Coming suddenly upon 

 this opening after a week or more of strugirling through the heavy 

 middle pack, it is not surprising that Xorth AVater has excited the 

 curiosity and interest of explorers for two centuries. (See fig. 10, 

 p. 19.) The earliest and still most common explanation which has now 

 become quite firmly established in the minds of many connects Xorth 



-^ The Canadian Government steamer Beothic struggled with ice for 20 days during the 

 summer of 1916 on its passage from Godhavn to Cape York, but strangely enough much 

 open water was found farther north in Smith Sound. 



^This is the " vestis " of the Danes. Its southeastern edge reaches over to Holstein- 

 horg in severe winters. 



=» Capt. E. Falk of the steamer Beothic, who has made several summer cruises into 

 Baffin Bay during recent years, states to me that Davis Strait never freezes all the way 

 across, but Baffin Bay does in severely cold winters. North of the seventy-fifth parallel, 

 except for North Water and off the entrance to .Tones and Lancaster Sounds, the bay 

 freezes solidly every winter from the beginning of December to the first of June. 



" According to a' statement of Capt. E. Falk. master Canadian Government steamer 

 Beothic. 



