62 CRUISE OF THE NEPTUNE 



battling witK heavy floes of northern ice, had been forced nearly 

 over to the Greenland coast in the endeavour to find a passage 

 southward, and then had to work back to the western side in 

 order to visit Cumberland gulf. Continuing in this heavy ice, 

 which completely filled the gulf, we finally reached Blacklead 

 islarid on the 31st, having passed a small .Norwegian brigantine 

 tightly beset in the ice about twenty miles from that place. We 

 lay alongside this vessel during the night previous, and were 

 boarded by her captain, who rightly had much fear for the 

 safety of his small unprotected craft in the heavy pack. All 

 the supplies for the coming year belonging to the mission and 

 whaling stations of the gulf were aboard, and if she were 

 crushed everybody living at those stations would have a hard 

 time until relief reached them in the summer of 1905. We 

 took on board the mail and ship's papers for the stations, and 

 left her still tight in the ice. 



At Blacklead we were visited by the Rev. Mr. J. Peck and the 

 agent of the whaling station, and learned from them that the 

 past year had been very unprofitable to the whalers and disas- 

 trous to the natives. Owing to the quantity of broken ice that 

 had been tightly jammed into the gulf throughout the summer, 

 and which prevented the boats from reaching the open water, 

 no whales had been captured, though a few had been seen. A 

 succession of heavy easterly gales occurred during the winter, 

 causing a heavy swell, which from time to time broke up the 

 solid ice of the bay and prevented the natives from going as 

 usual to the edge of the open water on their winter chase after 

 seals and walrus; many, consequently, were in a chronic state 

 of starvation during the winter. The same cause prevented 

 relief reaching them from the stations, dog-travelling being 

 impossible. Late in the autumn a heavy gale, in conjunction 

 with an extra high tide, swept away several tents and other 

 belongings of the natives who were camped on the lower part 

 of the island, the tide rising twenty feet above the ordinary 



