THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 473 



it had already contributed to our advancement towards Melville 

 Island, and I arranged for its abandonment. The ship was safely 

 hauled high upon the land. The remaining stores were either un- 

 spoilable, or of so little value that it did not pay to leave men for 

 their protection. I was planning that a hunting party should 

 spend the summer in Melville Island, killing game, sun-drying the 

 meat, putting the fat into bags or otherwise storing it, tanning the 

 skins for future use as clothing, and doing everything to prepare 

 for wintering in that island in 1916-17 by a party of between fif- 

 teen and twenty men and thirty to fifty dogs. The ultimate aim 

 was to have a base as far north as the 76th parallel, even should 

 the Polar Bear fail to get there, for the commencement of our ex- 

 ploratory work of 1917. I left the North Star March 2nd with 

 Alingnak and his family. All the others had gone before except 

 Lopez, who would follow in a few days. 



On the north coast of Banks Island everything was going well. 

 Several seals had been killed, Castel had secured a large bear at 

 the Gore Islands, Natkusiak and Emiu had killed twelve caribou 

 fifteen miles east, and Wilkins twelve others ten or fifteen miles 

 farther ahead. But the plan of hauling sugar to the Bear had to 

 be given up, for we had counted on the teams that Storkerson 

 would bring to move it from Mercy Bay to Prince of Wales Straits. 

 These sugar depots were abandoned on the north coast — to play 

 their part a year later in a tragedy undreamed beforehand and 

 incomprehensible after the event. 



Such a trip as ours from Cape Alfred to Mercy Bay, across 

 Melville Sound and Melville Island, and to our new land and be- 

 yond, would probably make a more interesting entire volume than 

 does the account of the whole expedition where the narrative has 

 to take the character of a synopsis. On Banks Island itself we 

 found as we advanced the novel topography of an unexplored 

 country, for a glance at the map that we made and a comparison 

 with the previous charts will show that there is little correspondence 

 of physical features. No one appears now able to tell how the 

 map of northern Banks Island found on the Admiralty charts was 

 originally made up. The only explanation is that it was drawn 

 largely from memory, perhaps several years after the Investigator 

 passed it, possibly even after the crew reached England. 



More interesting than the topography of a country are its re- 

 sources, and those of immediate interest to primitive dwellers in 

 it are the vegetation and game. We found caribou, never in large 

 bands but everywhere sufficient, so that had we had no food with 



