408 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 



paving of grindstones as over these hills. There was nothing for 

 Storkerson to do but to make a depot of what he had with him 

 and return to camp. He was back on October 1st and made his 

 third and successful start on the 10th. The party consisted of 

 four men, Storkerson and Herman Kilian to go the entire way, 

 and Noice and Charlie Anderson as a support party. 



Before his start Storkerson arranged for taking tide observations 

 in the straits. It was too early in the season for a snowhouse, so 

 he pitched a double tent twenty or thirty yards from shore. The 

 rise and fall of the water was observed on a long staff, graduated 

 into inches, and driven like a post into the bottom and stuck 

 through a hole in the ice. The hole was kept open through the 

 warmth of the tent where a kerosene blue-flame stove was kept 

 continually going, but when necessary water was heated and poured 

 boiling into the hole. As the rise and fall was only a few inches 

 between high and low tide, we recorded it in quarter inch intervals 

 and by observations taken ten minutes apart. This series of ob- 

 servations extended through one month. 



September 27th I made up a party to go south along the coast. 

 We wanted first to establish a hunting camp where the conditions 

 for sealing were more favorable than near the ship and next we 

 were anxious to get in touch with the Minto Inlet Eskimos as soon 

 as possible for purposes of study and to make purchases for our 

 ethnological collection. The party consisted of Illun with his wife 

 Kutok, Pikalu and his wife Pusimmik, Emiu, Palaiyak and myself. 



Our progress southward was slow, for the ice along the beach 

 was very rough and the land so rocky that we could not sledge over 

 it. Farther out in the strait the young ice was still so weak that 

 travel was unsafe. We stopped now and then for seals and killed 

 a number, two or three times sending loads of them back to the 

 ship. Our impression was, however, that in none of these localities 

 would the sealing remain good when the frost hardened, so we kept 

 moving along. Eventually we established a temporary sealing 

 camp just north of Deans Dundas Bay. We realized that this also 

 would become a poor locality as soon as the straits froze over more 

 firmly and that the permanent camp would have to be much far- 

 ther south where the currents keep the offshore ice in motion. 



I might here explain any apparent inconsistency between my 

 statements to the effect that I consider experienced white men bet- 

 ter traveling companions than Eskimos, and that on my journeys 

 I nearly always preferred Eskimo companions. The reason is that 

 I am an ethnologist by profession, and even apart from that in- 



