266 Our North Land. 



headway. With the wind I have mentioned, there will be a marked 

 westerly advance on the southerly tack ; and if the ice-floes are 

 moving forward, as they usually do in stretches very nearly at right 

 angles to the wind, she is caught in spite of herself on the northerly 

 tack. In an attempt to escape by leaving the ice astern, she will 

 frequently find herself hedged about by ice on every hand, — that 

 passed sometime previous having come to rest in a jam. 



A steam vessel may easily avoid all this. Sighting the ice for a 

 distance of at least five miles, open channels or weak places may be 

 selected, and the floes penetrated without difficulty or delay. The 

 wind does not control her movements, as with a sailing vessel. 

 Again, in the darkness of night, or in fogs and thick weather, 

 the steamer has a still more remarkable advantage over the sailing 

 craft. If ice-floes are encountered, she may either lay to or await 

 clear weather, or change her course at will regardless of the wind ; 

 and, better than all, she may turn her prow to the ice, and, with full 

 steam, force a passage through the thickest of it. With a steam- 

 ship, that which cannot be avoided in thick weather may be over- 

 come ; and although in the heavier floes her speed may be reduced, 

 she will soon find her way into open water, and, penetrating stretch 

 after stretch of field-ice, will find it less an obstacle to progress than 

 any one has supposed. 



Take the worst seasons that have been known by Hudson's Bay 

 Company's ships, or by whaling vessels, and there has not been an 

 experience so bad as to delay a strong wooden steamship more than 

 forty-eight hours in a voyage from one end of the Strait to the 

 other. 



Of the eight months which I have mentioned as the season of 

 navigation in the Strait, I believe that, so far as local ice is con- 

 cerned, July will be found to be the worst. I have already intimated 

 that the water, for ten miles out along both shores, is covered with 

 ice, often jammed and piled into huge masses during the winter 

 months. This shore ice may move up and down with wind and 

 tide, with surging, smashing force, so as to continually change its 

 surface appearance, presenting the prospect of a rugged, undulating, 

 hilly, snow-covered landscape one day, and a series of hills, or small 



