74 Our North Land. 



A suitable place had been selected on the rugged shore for the 

 station buildings, and work was to have been commenced on the 

 morning of Tuesday, the 12th of August, in landing lumber and 

 supplies ; but the circumstances forbade an attempt. The Neptune 

 was entirely surrounded by ice, so thickly jammed that the harbour 

 presented a scene similar to that of mid- winter. With each ebbing 

 tide it would pass partially out, but with the returning flood it 

 returned, thicker and more formidable than ever. Indeed, the ice 

 seemed to be gathering outside as well as in the harbour. 



With such an immense mass moving to and fro, the Neptune's 

 anchors were found insufficient, and steam was kept up to render 

 such assistance from time to time as was necessary. Notwith- 

 standing this, we moved into and out of the harbour, with each tide, 

 nearly a hundred yards. In this condition we lay all day on 

 Tuesday, unable to do anything except to land a small quantity of 

 lumber in the evening. 



At four o'clock eight huskies came on board, without kayaks, 

 by walking on the ice, jumping from pan to pan. They brought 

 with them a large quantity of reindeer meat, for which Captain 

 Sopp gave them knives, powder, bullets, and tobacco ; dealing, I 

 think, in a spirit of liberality with a view of fostering their custom. 

 This was considered the best means of advertising in this latitude 

 and among this peculiar people, especially when it was remembered 

 that we had unequal competition in the person and presence of 

 Captain Spicer, who resided but thirty miles distant, and perhaps 

 less. We took good care to explain, patriotically of course, to these 

 poor creatures, that Captain Spicer was a foreigner — a Yankee 

 foreigner, at that — an interloper, — one who had no business in the 

 country ; that he was a smuggler, etc.; in short, we called him hard 

 names. Ami not less emphatically we told them that we were the 

 owners of the soil (rocks) ; Canadians: the right people in the right 

 place, and that they should trade only with us. We told them also 

 of our great and good mother, Queen Victoria, and of her noble 

 Governor- General, Lord Lansdowne, and indicated that, perhaps 

 — with an emphasis on the perhaps — very likely, one day, the 

 same good Governor-General would make a treaty with them for 



