114 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 



After I had read the letter, a conversation with O'Neill added 

 light. Apparently members of the expedition had been discussing 

 both with the local Eskimos and with the whalers my plan of walk- 

 ing north over the frozen ocean with intent to depend for food and 

 fuel on the animals we might find. The Eskimos considered the 

 project suicide, saying that seals and polar bears would not be 

 found at any great distance from land, and that we should inevi- 

 tably starve if we did not lose our lives through some accident 

 of travel over the broken and continually shifting ice. The whalers 

 were of the same opinion. The members of the expedition then 

 felt no doubt of the substantial insanity of my project, and no 

 doubt that they were justified in taking steps to prevent me from 

 carrying it out. They were quite sincere in their opinion that the 

 Government at Ottawa and public opinion in general would sustain 

 them in that position. 



A little quiet discussion with O'Neill shook his confidence a 

 good deal. Before we arrived at the police barracks he told me 

 that his mind had been changed so far that, although he could not 

 very well go back on his agreement to stand by the rest of the 

 Collinson Point people in their opposition, he would at least go 

 so far as to give me his pocket chronometer. 



And then it came out that one of the conclusions reached by 



small sum of money belonging to a member of the expedition, in a locked 

 iron box of which I had the key. This box was later placed in charge of 

 the Royal Northwest Mounted Police at Herschel Island. During the spring 

 of 1914 the opinion grew stronger that my companions and myself had 

 died out on the ice. This opinion was held, with two or three exceptions, 

 by Eskimos, whalers and members of tlie expedition who were at Herschel 

 Island. On the theory that I was dead, my iron box was broken open. One 

 reason assigned for this was to get for the owner the money which the box 

 contained (I think about twenty dollars). 



When I arrived at Herschel Island a year later. Inspector Phillips of the 

 Royal Northwest Mounted Police turned over the box to me with the 

 explanation that it had been broken open by Dr. Anderson. I missed noth- 

 ing from it except the money, which had been given to its owner, and the 

 letter. 



Desiring the text of this letter for the completion of the records of the 

 expedition, the Deputy Minister of Naval Service of Canada in 1919 wrote 

 to Dr. Anderson asking him for a copy of the carbon which, since the letter 

 was typewritten, he presumed the writer had retained. Dr. Anderson replied 

 that he had kept no copy. He also stated to the Deputy Minister that my 

 box had not been broken open by himself but by Wilkins. Wilkins was 

 asked if he had broken open the box. He replied he had not; and he did 

 not really know who had, but had always understood it was Dr. Anderson. 

 I referred the matter again to Inspector Phillips. He says he is prepared 

 to say both that he told me Dr. Anderson had broken open the box, and 

 that he believed Dr. Anderson opened it, but that he cannot say positively 

 that he knows he did. Anyway, the letter is lost. 



