WHALING 255 
pack,' which all summer fills the southwestern part of Baffin 
bay. In the days of sailing ships the Whalers made their way 
across the bay by tracking, or sailing along the edge of the solid 
land-ice, and many a vessel was lost there. Even with steam- 
power this is a place of terror to the Whalers, and they never 
feel safe until they have reached the 'north water' at Cape 
York. As an illustration of the dangers and difficulties of this 
crossing, the Vega was -crushed and sunk in the summer of 
1903, and the Balaena was at the same time eighty days tightly 
jammed in the ice. In 1904 the Eclipse took thirty days to 
cross the bay, and the Diana was thirty-five days in crossing. 
The Neptune, on the 8th of August, crossed in twenty hours, 
when little ice was seen until within a few miles of Cape York; 
and from there to Cape Alexander, at the entrance to Smith 
sound, only ' pan ' or sheet ice was observed at the heads of 
the larger bays, all the eastern side of the northern part of 
Baffin bay being free of ice. This open ' north water ' is caused 
as follows : The ice to the southward of Cape Alexander breaks 
up towards the end of June or early in July, and is soon carried 
southward on the southerly current of the west side. Smith 
sound and its continuation northward remain tightly frozen 
until August, when it sends its heavy ice southward; in conse- 
quence there is always a wide interval of open water between 
these two streams of ice from the north. The Smith sound ice 
continues to pour out in heavy floes, often square miles in area, 
until the end of the year, and this stream finally joins the 
earlier ice in the western part of Baffin bay, where other 
streams of Arctic ice gather from Jones, Lancaster and Ponds 
inlet sounds. All these form the great mass of the ' middle pack/ 
which slowly empties on the northern current, flowing south- 
ward along the west side of Davis strait, blocking the mouths of 
Cumberland gulf and Frobisher bay in the late summer, later 
appearing on the coast of Labrador, and finally forming the 
