652 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 



fact that, although Castel spent two days in the vicinity, he was 

 unable to find any sign of a camp. 



It was not possible to bury the body of Thomsen properly, for 

 the ground was rocky and frozen. They made for him a shallow 

 grave, covered it with large boulders, and left word for Natkusiak's 

 party, who had more time and more resources, to make the grave 

 stronger and less likely to be penetrated by animals. They then 

 pushed on to search for Bernard's body, for the tragic fate of 

 Thomsen left little hope that Bernard could have come through. 

 For some time they were able to see traces of him, finding the west- 

 ward trail every few miles as before. They now came to our most 

 easterly food depot and to the most incomprehensible part of the 

 story. 



We knew exactly what was in this depot. The following items 

 were found by Castel still untouched: Sugar, 250 lbs.; syrup, 2 

 gallons; flour, 100 lbs., and a few pounds of beans and rice. There 

 were plain signs that the depot had been visited on the way east 

 and by Bernard alone going back. Either on the eastward or 

 westward journey the following items had been removed: Prunes, 

 15 lbs.; pilot bread, 96 lbs.; tobacco, 34 lbs.; half a case baking 

 powder (the remainder was left) ; tea, several pounds; soap, 12 

 lbs.; apples, 30 lbs. 



Here and there along the coast Castel found tin cans which 

 had been used as dishes in which to feed the dogs. These showed 

 that on the west coast of Banks Island the dogs had been living 

 on boiled rice with seal's fat, but on the north coast they had been 

 living on boiled rice without the blubber. The most extraordinary 

 and perhaps most tragic part of the whole story is that both at this 

 and the other depots all the bags of sugar were unopened. The 

 dogs were weakening from a diet of rice alone where rice and fat 

 would have kept them in good condition. But from a dietetic point 

 of view two and a quarter pounds of sugar are equal in food value 

 to a pound of fat and take the place of fat acceptably in the dietary. 

 This we have found also by experience, for dogs that will refuse to 

 eat a strange kind of meat, as, for instance, wolf, will lick syrup 

 greedily out of a dish that has about it the odor of seal oil or any 

 other strong familiar smell. The dogs as we know from actual trial 

 could have been kept in as good condition with sugar and rice as 

 with bacon and rice or blubber and rice. The whole tragedy then 

 appears to hinge on Bernard and Thomsen's lack of understanding 

 of the food value of sugar. 



Another twenty miles west Castel found that Captain Bernard 



