CHAPTER XLVIII 



THE NORTH COAST OF BANKS ISLAND 



BY March 2nd it was evident that something was wrong with 

 Storkerson, already several weeks overdue. Were he to 

 come now any exploratory effort made to the westward 

 from Cape Alfred would be abortive through almost certain failure 

 to penetrate materially beyond the area explored by us the pre- 

 vious year. We started eastward to find out what the trouble 

 was, reflecting that all our efforts that year would now have to be 

 concentrated on the survey of the new land and exploration of 

 the landlocked ice between the islands. 



Thus were we for the second time robbed of the benefit of the 

 Star, this time through no fault of the ship's but through failure in 

 preparation and operation among the scattered branches of the 

 expedition. My experience through the five years has tended to 

 put lower and still more low my opinion of the value of ships in 

 the sort of exploration we were doing. Many explorers seem to 

 have been differently led into a greater desire for more perfect 

 and powerful ice ships to carry them as far as possible. Should I 

 have another expedition I should be satisfied with almost any kind 

 of ship, such ships, for instance, as are used by the Hudson's Bay 

 Company for carrying freight to Herschel Island and these cer- 

 tainly are not of any approved ice-fighting type. What I should 

 want would be several young and adventurous men who would not 

 be homesick and who would be willing to burn their bridges behind 

 them, so far as ship support is concerned, when once they had left 

 an easily accessible port like Winter Harbor on Melville Island. It 

 is naturally difficult to compromise between two methods of doing a 

 simple thing. The polar tradition was so strong that although I was 

 free from its influence in theory, I did not in practice emancipate 

 myself completely. In this I mean to shoulder directly about half 

 the blame, but there was also the continued strong influence of my 

 men, half of whom did not become entirely convinced of the value 

 of our system until the year I am now going to describe. 



The usefulness of the Star base was gone, except in so far as 



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