Appendix. 587 



met with walrus in great numbers at the western end of the Strait. 

 In one afternoon, while steaming from the Digges Islands to 

 Nottingham Island, we found between fifty and a hundred of them 

 on the ice." 



Continuing his remarks in reference to the trade of the region 

 he very properly says : " I have heard it estimated, by men whom 

 I consider competent judges, that a good Eskimo would be worth 

 $500 a year to a trader. The Hudson's Bay Company rate some of 

 their best Indian hunters as worth $1,000 a year to the Company, 

 and, allowing that the Strait's region is a somewhat poorer region 

 than the north-west of the Bay, a family ought still to be worth 

 nearly $400 to a trader. This estimate gives the value of Captain 

 Spicer's station at $20,000 a year, an estimate which I believe to be 

 rather below than above the truth. All goods, destined for trade 

 with the natives, on board of the American whalers, should be 

 chargeable with duty, or a license fee charged them, before they are 

 permitted to enter Hudson Strait, which would be sufficient to 

 cover the duty, so that they may be placed on the same footing as 

 the Hudson's Bay Company : for the value of trade in musk-ox 

 robes, cariboo robes, seal skins, and ivory forms no unimportant part 

 of the profit of the whaling voyage." 



Lieutenant Gordon refers at some length to the work yet neces- 

 sary to be done in order to settle the question of the navigation of 

 our northern waters. He says : " Much will undoubtedly be 

 learned from the observations taken during this winter as to the 

 formation and breaking up of the ice, and generally in regard to its 

 movement, and also of the phenomena affecting navigation ; but it 

 would be impossible to state definitely from one year's observations 

 what was the average period of navigability of the Strait. I con- 

 sider, therefore, that it would be desirable to continue certain of the 

 stations for a second year, and might perhaps be desirable to keep on 

 three of them for a third year. 



" For the year 1885-86, I have the honour to recommend that 

 the following stations, Port Burwell, near Cape Chidley, Ashe Inlet, 

 near North Bluff, Stupart's Bay, near Prince of Wales Foreland, 

 Nottingham Island, and Digges Island, be continued. 



