344 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 



(1819) onward it has been frequently crossed in summer and hunted 

 over by the crews of ships wintering there. 



As we proceeded south along the west coast of Melville Island 

 we found it beautiful in a way quite different from most of the 

 other northern lands. Banks Island, for instance, has some pic- 

 turesque cliffs near its south end and also towards the north, but 

 in the main the beauty of Banks Island is that of the rolling 

 prairie, a landscape not commonly appreciated by others than those 

 who happen to have been brought up on prairie land. It is the 

 beauty of openness, fertility and utility. Melville Island, while 

 scarcely alpine in character, has deep gorges, sheer precipices and 

 bold headlands. This leaves no room for extensive grass lands, 

 and the great number of ovibos in the island as compared with 

 most other northern lands is due not to its fertility but to the 

 fact that it has not in recent times been overrun by Eskimos. 



But Eskimos have been on Melville Island. We and others 

 before us found traces of them on Liddon Gulf. Similar traces 

 have been found on Byam Martin Island by others and by us on 

 the south coast of Melville Island east of Bridport Inlet. But it 

 is clear that the country was not long inhabited. The reason seems 

 plain. 



There are certain groups of Eskimos that live on fish. Probably 

 Melville Island is not well supplied with fish although of that we 

 know little. But most Eskimos live by hunting walrus, seals, 

 caribou, cattle and polar bears. Of these walrus are absent and, 

 so far as my experience goes, Melville Island is the poorest locality 

 in the north for seals with the exception of the north end of 

 Byam Martin Channel. There is some sealing both in Liddon 

 Gulf and in Hecla Bay in spring and rare seals are found elsewhere. 

 Polar bears are not nearly so numerous as in most other arctic 

 localities. Caribou have not been found there in large numbers 

 by us nor are they reported in large numbers by others. Indeed 

 they could not be numerous, since the land is exceptionally in- 

 fertile. 



There remain the polar cattle. Undoubtedly Melville Island at 

 present would be a paradise for a small band of Eskimos but it 

 would remain a paradise only a few years, when all the cattle 

 would be killed off. It is clear that Eskimos in the days antedating 

 the fur industry and the support of traders would not by choice 

 have remained in Melville Island long. Coming perhaps from 

 Victoria Island to the south, possibly from the east, they discovered 

 Melville Island (to judge by the ruins) two or three hundred years 



