68 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 



Mr. Brower's welcome when we arrived at Barrow was no less 

 friendly because he regretted our being back so soon under such 

 circumstances. He is an optimist by temperament, as every pioneer 

 should be, and his cheerfulness and friendliness helped to reconcile 

 me to the situation. By now I was completely over the idea that 

 the expedition was going to be uninteresting because of being too 

 easy, or monotonous because of having some one to do everything 

 for me. 



After a day or two at Cape Smythe we set about preparing the 

 best sort of outfit we could. My men on leaving the Karluk had 

 been improperly dressed and this was now remedied through skins 

 and other things supplied us from Mr. Brower's stores and through 

 the assistance of the Eskimo seamstresses of the village. The one 

 thing we wanted most, however, was good sledges, for I knew that 

 at Collinson Point there would not be more than one or two of the 

 heavy type. It takes an entirely different sled to encounter the 

 rough and shifting ice on the Beaufort Sea from what is needed 

 for work on shore. It had been my supposition that the Alaska 

 and the Mary Sachs would in winter confine their operations to 

 the land or to the comparatively level ice near land and would, 

 therefore, need sledges weighing from seventy-five to a hundred 

 and seventy-five pounds, and they had, accordingly, been equipped 

 with light ones mainly. The kind that I preferred for rough ice 

 work would weigh two hundred to two hundred and seventy-five 

 pounds. With a sledge of that weight Mr. Brower could not supply 

 me, but he had light material for making just one sled and he set 

 about doing that. He made it himself and it was, therefore, as 

 well made as was possible with the materials. It eventually gave 

 us as good service as any sled I ever had of its weight, though it 

 never could take the place of any one of the heavy sledges carried 

 by the Karluk. 



Although it is three hundred miles north of the arctic circle 

 and within sight of the most northerly tip of Alaska, Cape Smythe 

 had at that time three mails going to the outside world in winter. 

 The first of these was leaving in November, and with it I sent out 

 to the Government at Ottawa a report of the proceedings and mis- 

 haps of the expedition up to that point and a program for future 

 work. This letter is summarized as follows: 



I told the Minister of Naval Service that I considered it very 

 doubtful whether the Karluk as a ship would survive the winter. 

 I could not be sure in what part of the ocean she was, although in- 

 clined to the belief that she was to the westward. While the pro- 



