264 



Sound on their dog-sledges, and they knew absoUitely nothing 

 of the land to the west or north. "The oldest man among 

 them was very bald, which is a rarety, and was called Kre'tlak 

 (Mc Clintock: Kal-lek)". 



This Kre'tlak cannot be any other than Kridlarssuark, who 

 has grown to be a great figure in the folk-lore of the Polar 

 Eskimos. All doubt of his identity disappears when we learn 

 what Panigpak told Knud Rasmussen regarding his great grand- 

 father. "His hair was thin like the white men's. His large 

 forehead was not covered by hair". A more certain proof of 

 identity, when it shows an extremely rare characteristic among 

 Eskimos, we could not desire. 



When we think of the length of time such a journey would 

 take under a constant struggle for existence, it seems very 

 probable, that 6 — 7 years passed during which the little group 

 of emigrating. Ponds Inlet Eskimos wandered along the east 

 coasts of North Devon and Ellesmere Land, before they 

 reached their distant, uncertain goal, the Northern Eskimos, of 

 whom they had heard from the whalers. I believe myself fairly 

 near the truth, in saying, that it was most probably the year 

 1862 or 1863. when the culture of the Polar Eskimos received 

 the many new impulses from their immigrant kinsmen. 



The English Expedition of 1875 — 76 under G. Nares did 

 not touch the land-region of the Polar Eskimos on the voyage 

 up to Floeberg Beach on the coast of the Polar Ocean itself; 

 on the return voyage the ship of the Expedition entered Bardin 

 Bay on September 12^^^ 1876 and saw there an Eskimo land- 

 settlement, but as the wind went round it was obliged to 

 hasten out to sea, without coming into connection with the 

 Eskimos, who were already streaming to the beach Ч 



The American Expedition of 1881 — 1884 under A. W. Greely'^ 

 has most interest in this connection, as it discovered Lake 



1 A. H. Markham: The Great Frozen Sea. London 1880, p. 359. 



- A. W. Greely: Three years of arctic service. London 1886. Vols. I— 11. 



