636 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 



and eventually landed at Point John Russell, under great difficulty, 

 however, for within a mile of land the ice was perilously rotten. 

 When we finally got to the actual water we were able to find a 

 loose cake of ice large enough to be used as a ferry although not 

 for the whole party. We put some of the gear and two or three 

 dogs on at a time and made several trips until everything was 

 landed on some grounded ice from which it was possible to wade 

 to the beach. 



On the Admiralty chart the land is very much elongated out 

 to Point John Russell so that it is at the end of what may be called 

 a peninsula. In reality, we found no such formation and it was 

 impossible to tell where Point John Russell might really be, the 

 coast curving so uniformly and gradually. This was my first visit 

 to the locality but Knight had been there before and knew what 

 Storkerson's party had decided to call Point John Russell, though 

 they had no more evidence to base their decision upon than we. 

 They had seen this point only in winter but had nevertheless sus- 

 pected that there might be a good harbor. We had the finest sort 

 of opportunity now to judge. 



The harbor was first reported to me by Storkerson the spring of 

 1916 in Borden Island as a suitable place for the Bear in case she 

 could get that far up the straits but could not cross to Melville 

 Island. He thought she could lie here safe while watch was kept 

 from a five hundred-foot lookout three or five miles inland. From 

 such vantage in clear weather it would be possible to see half-way 

 across the sound and to judge the condition of the ice or to deter- 

 mine its absence. It is certainly a strategic position for any such 

 undertaking. Next after Storkerson it was Knight who described 

 this harbor and who now guided us to it, and as I had already given 

 Storkerson's name to the great bay on the west coast of Banks 

 Island I called this Knight Harbor. It is essentially a long sandspit 

 running out from the land, not very different in configuration from 

 the well-known whaleship harbor at Herschel Island. There is 

 absolute protection from every wind except southeast, and even 

 from this wind there is fair shelter. The water was probably deep 

 because there had been big ice cakes inside the harbor the spring 

 of 1916. They were so big that they could not have melted away 

 in a summer, but they were gone and must have floated off. Fur- 

 tiiermore, there were now several seals lying scattered over the 

 harbor ice which is a fair indication of depth, for I have seldom 

 found seals lying on ice unless the depth was three or more fathoms. 



We could take our sleds no farther, and it took several days to 



