THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 93 



game can have been scared by the barking of dogs or the smoke 

 smell of the camp, by the time that daylight enough for good shoot- 

 ing comes into the southern sky. He then uses to the best advan- 

 tage the four or five hours of hunting light, going from high hilltop 

 to high hilltop and examining with his field glasses every exposed 

 hillside or valley. If he does not see game the first day, he hunts 

 similarly the second; and if he finds none the first week, he con- 

 tinues the second week. For it is an essential of hunting conditions 

 that although game may be abundant in a large region of country, 

 it may at any time be absent from any small specific section. 



But this hunting party, which was partly a picnic and partly 

 a baptism in the hardships of polar exploration, was, from Chip- 

 man's description, a noisy rout of convivial spirits who seldom 

 v/ent far out of each other's road and who in various ways gave 

 the game ample notice to leave, if there was any game. Probably 

 there was none, for the excursion only lasted a week and it would be 

 a matter of mere chance if in such a short trip game should be 

 found. However, the trip served the useful purpose of easing their 

 consciences, for now they knew that no game could be got and that 

 there was no occasion for them to do anything but wait for the 

 spring in the orthodox way of explorers, reading the Encyclopaedia 

 Britannica or penny novels, according to temperament, making long 

 diary entries, listening to victrolas and having flashlight photo- 

 graphs taken now and then, showing the comforts and conviviali- 

 ties of an arctic home. 



A report had been sent to Ottawa, Mr. Chipman informed me, 

 to the effect that the fall hunt had been a failure and that there 

 was no game in the country, that winter would be spent in camp, 

 and that when the weather became reasonably warm in the spring 

 surveys would be made of the Herschel Island River and of the hun- 

 dred miles or so of coast between the International Boundary and 

 the Mackenzie mouth. When summer came the party would pro- 

 ceed to Coronation Gulf to take up the work which had of neces- 

 sity been deferred a year through the compulsory wintering at Col- 

 linson Point. 



Chipman being a new man in the country, it was easy for me 

 to convince him that a far wider program was open to us. When 

 I showed him a copy of my report to the Government from Point 

 Barrow, outlining the project of surveying not only the Herschel 

 Island River and the coast from the Boundary to the Mackenzie 

 (as they had planned), but also surveying and sounding the Mac- 

 kenzie delta, he was delighted. Like any good workman he was 



