i5o 



EXPLORATIONS IN THE FAR NORTH 



The gale, accompanied by frequent showers of rain, contin- 

 ued during the third day. The ice was rapidly breaking up and 

 disappearing, not drifting away, but being pounded out of 

 existence by the heavy seas. The main field was four feet in 

 thickness and several square miles in extent. Small bergs, ten 

 to fifteen feet in height, were driven into this, and they too were 

 soon transformed into seawater. I occupied a part of the day 

 in baking bread in the frying pan before a fire of wet logs and 

 concluded that a sandy beach and a strong wind is not a happy 

 combination for open air baking. On the 22nd I reached the 

 southwestern extremity of the island, about seven miles distant. 

 I could not reach the mainland owing to the extensive mud- 

 flats, which the low tide exposed, but camped for the night on 

 the narrow sandbar which extends three miles from that extrem- 

 ity of the island. The day following the wind was blowing too 

 strong for the dingy to weather it, and I did not get away until 

 evening, when I rowed westward alongthe fringing reefs, which 

 extend with little interruption to Point Barrow. I halted at a 

 high island of only a few acres extent, where a considerable 

 portion of the property of a band of Eskimos, who were hunt- 

 ing caribou inland, was lying upon stages. I was opposite the 

 mouth of a large creek which flowed through a gap in the 

 mountains, ten or twelve miles distant. The stream had spread 

 in its rapid descent over several miles of plain, across which 

 running water appeared in at least fifty shallow channels. 

 With a canoe, I could have ascended this without great diffi- 

 culty, but I found it impossible to drag the heavy boat more 

 than five miles through the shallow rapids. I saw but few cari- 

 bou, and they kept well out on the level ground, where there 

 was not even a creeping shrub to afford cover in stalking. I 

 watched them for some time with the field glasses and noted 

 the fact that they seemed to be greatly annoyed by insects. 

 They were then clothed in the short summer hair and the ant- 

 lers of the males were of large size. 



Returning to the eastward, I camped on the mainland and 

 spent the next ten days in collecting birds. I saw no ptarmigan, 

 though they had been common between the Mackenzie and 

 Kay Point. Red-throated loons and cacawees were the most 

 abundant of the water birds. Ravens were common, perhaps 

 attracted by the carcasses of whales, seven of which were within 



