CHAPTER IX 



A PAUSE AT WINTER QUARTERS 



AT Collinson Point I got the warmest sort of welcome, al- 

 though it could scarcely be said that they were glad to see 

 me, for seeing me here meant that something had gone 

 wrong elsewhere. From the reports of whalers and their own 

 knowledge of the condition of the ice, they had inferred long ago 

 that the Karluk was in trouble. The Belvedere, too, had seen our 

 smoke, as mentioned earlier, and had inferred from its position and 

 stationary nature that we were keeping up steam while held fast 

 by the ice ten or fifteen miles out in the pack. The common whaler 

 opinion was that we ought to have abandoned the vessel imme- 

 diately, coming ashore as best we could, for that is the method the 

 whalers have always followed. 



As Leffingwell had told me. Dr. Anderson and three or four 

 other men were absent, having gone east towards Herschel Island 

 to get their letters and government dispatches into the hands of 

 the Royal Northwest Mounted Police at Herschel Island, to be 

 carried to Dawson by the Peel River Patrol in January. In Dr. 

 Anderson's absence Chipman was in command, and the next day he 

 gave me verbally a report of the situation and of the plans as they 

 stood up to the moment of my coming. 



Chipman reported it had been the opinion of Dr. Anderson that 

 their resources were inadequate for doing, the coming spring, any 

 survey work except the coastline between the International Boun- 

 dary and the mouth of the Mackenzie River. They had discussed 

 the possibility of surveying the Mackenzie delta but had concluded 

 that it was too far away from Collinson Point and beyond their 

 resources. They had planned, therefore, in addition to this coast 

 survey merely a reconnaissance of the Firth River (sometimes called 

 the Herschel Island River) which heads in the Endicott 

 Mountains to the south. Contrary to my view, it was the view of 

 Dr. Anderson, in which the other men had necessarily concurred 

 through their lack of local experience, that no survey work either 

 geological or topographical could be done in the middle of winter, 

 and that everything would have to wait for the warm weather of 



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