WHALING 255 



pack/ which all summer fills the southwestern part of Baffin 

 bay. In the days of sailing ships the whalers made their way 

 across the bay by tracking, or sailing along the edge of the solid 

 land-ice, and many a vessel was lost there. Even with steam- 

 power this is a place of terror to the whalers, and they never 

 feel safe until they have reached the ' north water ' at Cape 

 York. As an illustration of the dangers and difficulties of this 

 crossing, the Vega was crushed and sunk in the summer of 

 1903, and the Balaena was at the same time eighty days tightly 

 jammed in the ice. In 1904 the Eclipse took thirty days to 

 cross the bay, and the Diana was thirty-five days in crossing. 

 The Neptune, on the 8th of August, crossed in twenty hours, 

 when little ice was seen until within a few miles of Cape York ; 

 and from there to Cape Alexander, at the entrance to Smith 

 sound, only ' pan ' or sheet ice was observed at the heads of 

 the larger bays, all the eastern side of the northern part of 

 Baffin bay being free of ice. This open ' north water ' is caused 

 as follows : The ice to the southward of Cape Alexander breaks 

 up towards the end of June or early in July, and is soon carried 

 southward on the southerly current of the west side. Smith 

 sound and its continuation northward remain tightly frozen 

 until August, when it sends its heavy ice southward ; in conse- 

 quence there is always a wide interval of open water between 

 these two streams of ice from the north. The Smith sound ice 

 continues to pour out in heavy floes, often square miles in area, 

 until the end of the year, and this stream finally joins the 

 earlier ice in the western part of Baffin bay, where other 

 streams of Arctic ice gather from Jones, Lancaster and Ponds 

 inlet sounds. All these form the great mass of the ' middle pack/ 

 which slowly empties on the northern current, flowing south- 

 ward along the west side of Davis strait, blocking the mouths of 

 Cumberland gulf and Frobisher bay in the late summer, later 

 appearing on the coast of Labrador, and finally forming the 



