THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 263 



in these sandy districts in sufficient quantity for cooking. Once 

 or twice we descended to the seacoast for our evening camp and 

 were able to find driftwood. 



About the middle of the west coast of Banks Island the Ad- 

 miralty chart indicates Terror Island, a conspicuous little island 

 which we found in its proper latitude. But just north of it the 

 chart shows a straight coast line, and here we found a great bay 

 about fifteen miles across and running fifteen miles or more into the 

 land. I have named it Storkerson Bay in honor of the man who 

 did more than any other member of the expedition towards the 

 success of its geographic work. 



South of Storkerson Bay the amount of driftwood on the coast 

 increased rapidly and in one bay a little to the south there must 

 have been several cords of wood to one mile of beach. This would 

 be little for the mainland coast near the Mackenzie delta, where 

 there are thousands of cords to the mile in some places, but it is 

 more driftwood than we found anywhere else on Banks Island. 



Towards evening on September 10th I climbed a commanding 

 hill and recognized that a few miles south lay the sandspit of Cape 

 Keilett. Except for Point Barrow at the north tip of Alaska, 

 this is the greatest sandspit known to me in the Arctic. It is 

 shaped about like a fish-hook. It first runs four or five miles 

 west from the southwest corner of the land proper and then it bends 

 gradually northwest, north, northeast, east and southeast in a 

 two-mile curve, forming what looks like a safe harbor, although it 

 has an unsafe entrance because of shoals, is swept with currents 

 carrying ice at certain seasons, and is not a safe harbor at all. 



The recognition of the indubitable outline of Cape Keilett was 

 followed by a quarter of an hour of suspense while my glasses 

 searched all the vicinity from the hilltop, first hastily for the pos- 

 sible presence of a ship, and later minutely for a beacon or other 

 sign that some one had been there who had an interest in us. 

 Nothing could be seen that resembled any work of man. 



I felt truly depressed as I went about the erection of a beacon 

 for the guidance of my companions who were four or five miles 

 behind. It happened that on top of this hill there were some 

 "nigger heads" scattered about, which, as we have explained, is the 

 material used by Eskimos in building the foundations for their 

 summer camps. Because that material was abundant, I erected 

 in half an hour a beacon that could be seen with the naked eye from 

 five or six miles. I left in it a note saying nothing about disap- 



