58 



Our JSorth Land. 



Murray, United States Navy, to exist in 1860), about eight miles 

 south of the cape. We explored this channel and called it McLelan 

 Strait, in honour of Hon. A. W. McLelan, the Canadian Minister of 

 Marine and Fisheries. "We were absent three days, camping most 

 of the time on the shores of the little channel, where we met with 

 Eskimos. These, consisting of two families, were camped in a 

 little ravine on a small inlet off the Strait, where the barren gneiss 

 hills towered on either side for more than four hundred feet above 

 the water's level, in almost perpendicular cliffs. Here, in this se- 

 cluded valley, walled about by high cliffs, were the ruins of an 

 Eskimo village, where, perhaps a century before, when these 



curious people were more nu- 

 merous, dwelt a thrifty popu- 

 lation of over three hundred. 

 From the appearance of the 

 ruins, and by the aid of the Ex- 

 pedition interpreter through 

 whom I made many inquiries 

 of those now residing at the 

 cape, I learned much about 

 this now ruined and deserted, 

 but once flourishing town. It 

 was originally, and the place 

 is still, called New-nan-go, 

 which, in Eskimo, means a 

 hidden place. The town had been constructed on a small cone- 

 shaped hill, composed of gravel and boulders. The huts or dens 

 were merely small excavations, circular shaped, about ten feet 

 under the surface, approached by small subterranean passages. 

 There was a row of these around the little elevation, at the base ; 

 another row a little further up, extending around in a circle, and 

 nearer the top ; still another, and of course more contracted circle ; 

 while at the top, and over all, was the dwelling of the Ut-ter-ick, or 

 chief. The circle next below him, comprising about six dens, had 

 been the dwelling-places of the Utterick's chief men. As you 

 descended toward the base of the hill, not more than thirty feet 



ESKIMO SNOW HUTS. 



