ARCTIC TEMPERATURES AND EXPLORATION. 657 



have I felt it, and that was in the middle of summer, when as a 

 very young man I was fool enough to try and walk fifty miles in 

 a day without any previous training. During the last mile or 

 two my companions had hard work to keep me on my feet, and at 

 the end of the journey I subsided into a chair and went fast 

 asleep, and in that condition was carried to bed, where I slept for 

 twenty-four hours. I was simply " played out/' and it is that not 

 cold which produces the drowsiness so often referred to. More 

 than once since then I have walked fifty miles on snowshoes and 

 never felt anything of the kind, but I made it a rule to stop 

 every four hours and brew some tea and eat a good square meal. 

 When this practice is followed, it is astonishing how far a man 

 can go without excessive fatigue. The " fatal drowsiness," as it 

 is so often called (which is surely a near relation of " that tired 

 feeling "), is nothing but Nature's final rebellion against a reck- 

 less overtaxing of the muscular power without renewing the 

 waste, which of course goes on most quickly in cold weather. 



A more recent example of the staying powers of Canadian sur- 

 veyors is furnished by the exploration of the " Barren Lands " 

 and Chesterfield Inlet just brought to a. successful completion by 

 the Tyrrell brothers for the Dominion Geological Survey. The 

 party consisted of the two Tyrrells and six Indian canoemen, a 

 model party for exploring purposes. The total distance covered 

 by them in canoes from Athabasca Landing to Fort Churchill on 

 Hudson Bay was two thousand two hundred miles, and thence 

 to Winnipeg on foot or by dog train one thousand miles. Of the 

 two thousand two hundred miles, eight hundred and fifty was 

 through an entirely new country never before traveled by white 

 men, and five hundred miles was over the open sea of Hudson 

 Bay at the very worst season of the year, between the middle of 

 September and the middle of October. It was during this trip 

 down Hudson Bay that they endured the greatest hardships. 

 They ran out of provisions, there was no wood along the coast, 

 and on one occasion they were unable to land for forty-eight hours 

 on account of the heavy sea. None but Canadians would ever 

 have ventured on such a trip in canoes ; none but Indians could 

 have carried it through successfully. All the stirring incidents 

 of this daring journey have been fully published by the press 

 throughout ^the continent, and need not be recapitulated here. 

 They prove conclusively that the boast of the Ontario Land Sur- 

 veyors is based on recorded facts, of which any nation might be 

 proud. 



In considering the record of past failures in the arctic regions 

 for, in spite of the magnificent heroism displayed, they were 

 nothing but failures two points stand out clear and distinct, 

 viz., that the pole will never be reached in ships, and that it can 



VOL. XLV. 49 



