STEFANSSON-ANDERSON ARCTIC EXPEDITION 113 



Flaxman Island, Arctic Ocean, Alaska, 



October 14, 1908. 



=•=****! started west with three natives in a whale-boat and a large 

 skin canoe or umiak about 25 feet long, with the intention of cruising along 

 the coast to Flaxman Island to meet Stefansson early in September. We 

 had seventeen dogs and ourselves to feed "on the country," as we started 

 with about one sack of flour, four or five pounds of bacon, a little tea and 

 coffee and about fifty pounds of dried fish. We had several gill nets and 

 were obliged to stop and fish a good deal at various places. Fishing was 

 only fairly good along the coast ; we caught from ten to forty Avhitefish 

 nearly every day and a few salmon trout, but could not get very many ahead. 



We saw seven caribou and killed one Aigust 18, at Demarcation Point, 

 the international boundary. Our whaleboat was frozen in at a reef a little 

 west of Barter Island, Alaska, on September 5, about fifteen days earlier 

 than usually happens. We succeeded in drawing it up to an apparently 

 safe place on the reef by means of block and tackle which we had with us, 

 cached one chest of specimens and part of our goods with the boat and 

 broke ice and dragged the skin boat over the sandbars to the mainland at 

 the mouth of Okpilak River, taking part of our supplies with us. 



We killed a good many squirrels here {Spermophilufi parriji) which helped 

 out our commissariat and made a few "skins" also. As we had only two 

 or three days' provisions On hand, and as the ice was too thin for sled travel, 

 we made pack saddles for several of our dogs, and started September 9 

 across the half-frozen tundra to the place where the Hula Hula River emerges 

 from the mountains, and the' swift water remains open much later than near 

 the coast. The lower coast of both the Okpilak and Hula Hula froze over 

 at the time the "young ice" formed in the sea lagoon. Snow fell on Septem- 

 ber 10 and has remained on the ground ever since. 



At the fishing place on the Hula-Hula River we caught several hundred 

 salmon trout (two species), many specimens being from six to eight pounds 

 in weight. One day we caught 284. We also killed three caribou on Sep- 

 tember 14, but my native inconsiderately ripped the hides off and ruined 

 them for specimens while I was chasing the fourth individual of the herd. 

 We remained up- country over two weeks, returned to the coast for our two 

 sleds, hauled the fish and meat back to our camp on the coast, and started 

 as soon as possible for Flaxman Island, the sleds pretty heavily loaded 

 with most of our fish and meat. We arrived at Flaxman Island October 

 4, after a rather hard trip along the coast, owing to rough frozen in blocks 

 of ice in places and salt slush in others. 



We had seen only one family of natives camped at Barter Island and two 

 sailing in a whale l)oat late in August, and they had told us that Leffingwell 



