APPENDIX 739 



and Cox had prepared a map of the harbor at Collinson Point and 

 vicinity on the scale of 1/24000 extending it inland to include some 

 ten square miles of country with 20-foot contours. The harbor was 

 thoroughly sounded. It is not suitable for large vessels, carrying only 

 about seven feet of water at the entrance, but is deeper inside. Ves- 

 sels of somewhat larger size may obtain shelter by going behind some of 

 the small islands in the chain extending west from Flaxman Island. 



During the spring and summer of 1914, the routine and executive 

 work of the southern party devolved upon me, including the apportion- 

 ment of supplies and equipment for three vessels. As a consequence, 

 the time for zoological field work and the preparation of specimens was 

 limited; nevertheless, 212 birds representing 52 species, and 77 mam- 

 mals representing 13 species were collected and preserved. Nests and 

 eggs of many of the species of breeding birds were also collected. 



The expedition vessels Alaska and Mary Sachs left Collinson Point 

 on July 25, 1914, the first day that the ice moved off the beach far 

 enough to let us out of the harbor. They had been free of the ice 

 inside of the harbor sincfe July 7. After some delays occasioned by ice, 

 which was thick and close to the beach around Martin Point, Icy Reef 

 and Demarcation Point, the Alaska reached Herschel Island August 

 5, and the Mary Sachs a few hours later. The 10-ton gasoline schooner 

 North Star had been purchased by Stefansson from its owner, Captain 

 Martin Andreasen, who was wintering in Clarence Bay, a little east 

 of Demarcation Point. She had got in to Herschel Island from Clarence 

 Bay a little before. 



These three were the first ships to come into Canadian waters in the 

 western Arctic flying the Canadian flag. 



The steam-whaler Belvedere, of Seattle, which had taken on a quan- 

 tity of auxiliary supplies, coal, distillate, etc., from Nome in 1913 for 

 the expedition, and had been compelled to winter in the ice a little off- 

 shore west of Icy Reef, had come through safely and landed our stores 

 at Herschel Island about the last of July. 



Herschel Island is a busy place in July and August. Perhaps 

 twenty-five or more Eskimo whale boats, and a dozen two-masted Macken- 

 zie-built schooners, were assembled here to trade with incoming ships. 

 With the recent decline in the whaling industry in the western Arctic, 

 and smaller probability of ships wintering at Herschel Island, the Es- 

 kimos from the Mackenzie delta and from the westward had a still 

 greater incentive than formerly to be at the island to trade during the 

 short open season. 



As previously reported, Stefansson, after his separation from the 

 Karluk, had established a base camp at Martin Point, with supplies 

 obtained from Collinson Point, and from the Belvedere and North Star 

 outfits, and started north from Martin Point on March 22, 1914, on 

 an ice-exploring expedition over Beaufort Sea. The three men of the 

 support party returned to land at Kamarkak, about 30 miles west of 



