THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 519 



vailing winds are from the north or north by west, and the next most 

 important winds from the SSE. No snowdrifts were being formed 

 at this season of year, but the winds still maintained their charac- 

 ter and the north by west winds were especially strong and per- 

 sistent. 



Noice went several miles inland, yet his report was not con- 

 vincing as to whether there was a glacier. I had refrained from 

 saying more than that he was to learn what he could and tell me 

 about it when he got back. I did caution him to be on the lookout 

 not to fall into a crevasse. Neither had Noice ever seen a glacier 

 but he lacked even my theoretical knowledge of them and appar- 

 ently thought that their surface would consist of glare ice, or at 

 least some form of ice. When he found only a snow surface he 

 concluded that it was not a glacier. He found no knolls to climb 

 upon although he saw one in the far distance. After traveling 

 towards it for an hour or two without getting appreciably nearer 

 he concluded it was too far away and turned back. He noticed 

 the absence of the vegetation which is usually so evident in the 

 Arctic, and kicked in the snow trying to find grass but saw none. 

 Later when we talked he was unable to say whether he had been 

 walking over land or snow-covered ice. But it is clear that if there 

 is a glacier on this island, it certainly does not come down to the 

 vicinity of the sea on any part of the coast which we touched. 



This is the description entered in the diary that day: "The 

 land lacks the undulating outline of Isachsen Land (or our Borden 

 Island). Near the coast are rolling hills and knobs of gravel; 

 inland is a dome of turtle-backed outline, free of hills or ravines 

 that can be seen from the coast hills here. There are erratic boul- 

 ders, none very large, and gravel but no rock in situ. Charlie 

 picked up some worn pebbles and small pieces of petrified wood 

 (willow?) on top of hills two hundred feet above the sea. We are 

 keeping all these. 



"A beacon was built by Noice to-day on a hill three-quarters 

 or one mile east from camp, half a mile from the beach. It can 

 be seen with the bare eyes about three miles. It is about three 

 and a half feet high. We shall put up a mark of boxboard there, 

 so: 'CANADIAN ARCTIC EXPEDITION— June 15, 1916.' 

 There is also the record of which a carbon appears on the opposite 

 page. This is wrapped in a Horlick's Malted Milk paper wrapper 

 and enclosed in a New-Skin can and that in a Kootenay Cocoa tin 

 — all three stand for things that have been useful to us on this trip 

 but which now survive only in their wrappers. The tin is placed 



