544 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 



time observations, those farthest apart having an interval of 

 twenty-three days. 



During the middle of August Noice took care of the camp while 

 Charlie and I made a trip of several days with pack dogs exploring 

 the island. From hills near the southern end we were able to get 

 bearings of points on Bathurst Island. From other hills north of 

 the middle we were able on a clear day to see King Christian Island 

 and from near the north end were even able to see cliffs which prob- 

 ably were on Ellef Ringnes Island. To the west we got bearings of 

 two or three points on Borden Island. To the southwest Melville 

 Island was not in sight. As with our other lands, we found con- 

 siderable evidence of recent uplift in the form of a sprinkling of 

 seashells and some raised beaches of the ice-built kind. There 

 was one track of a polar bear but evidently these are not numerous 

 west of the meridian of Hassel Sound until (as we learned later) 

 you get south into Byam Martin Channel between Bathurst and 

 Melville Islands. 



The summer brought but one flock of ptarmigan and the ducks 

 were only king eiders and old squaws. Plovers probably do not 

 go that far north but there were sandpipers, snow buntings, owls, 

 and the same three kinds of gulls noted farther north. There were 

 no traces of ovibos either past or present. It goes without saying 

 that there were no signs of Eskimos. We found no such signs any- 

 where farther north than the shores of Liddon Gulf on Melville 

 Island. 



The few zoological specimens collected were chiefly such small 

 things as could be preserved in alcohol in the one-pound malted 

 milk tins, but it seemed so interesting to try to get a caribou speci- 

 men from a district so far from where any such specimens are 

 known to have been taken that I decided to try it. One night I 

 killed a young caribou while the boys were asleep, took all the meas- 

 urements carefully, removed the skin according to the ideas of the 

 taxidermist, and carried it home along with all the leg bones. On 

 arrival I woke the boys and we had breakfast together. Then 

 Charlie left with the pack dogs to fetch the meat while I went to 

 sleep. 



Noice under the influence of my lectures and the pressure of 

 circumstance had given up most of his views on meat and how to 

 eat it, but he had persisted in preferring boiled fat caribou meat to 

 the raw marrow which I had told him was much better. Inside this 

 caribou skin the leg bones were wrapped, the bones still fastened 

 together by their ligaments and attached by the hide at the hoofs. 



