88 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 



though an old hand in Bering Sea, Captain Bernard had never been 

 on the north coast of Alaska. It was just here that Leffingwell's 

 local knowledge, of the kind the Sachs needed, was fuller than 

 that of any other man. He has himself made the only good map 

 of this part of Alaska.* This map shows the soundings by which 

 vessels of light draught can follow the devious channels inside the 

 "lagoon," while protected from the sea pack by the line of reefs and 

 islands that fence most of the coast from the Colville to Flaxman 

 Island. What was more, Leflfingwell himself, first with the Anglo- 

 American Polar Expedition schooner Duchess of Bedford in 1906 

 and later with his own private yacht Argo, had navigated these 

 channels and was therefore an ideal pilot. So the Sachs, though 

 she had been in some tight places with the ice between Point Hope 

 and the Colville, had had little trouble when once she got to the 

 "lagoons." 



Dr. Anderson, who like myself knew the coast better (from our 

 1908-12 expedition) by sled in winter than by boat in summer, had 

 had more trouble bringing the Alaska through, though he got her 

 creditably and without injury to the same wintering place, Collin- 

 son Point. Here the schooners were frozen in, quite safe both 

 of them, Leffingwell said, though they were not in a real harbor 

 but merely protected from winter ice pressure by shoals to seaward. 



We were comfortable and had a good time at Leffingwell's, but 

 it worried my companions a little that we stayed three or four days. 

 In fact, they had been worried a good deal on the entire journey 

 east from Barrow by my conspicuous lack of hurry. Their book 

 notions required heroism and hardship. I really think they felt 

 we were falling conspicuously short of the best standards of polar 

 travel in making a midwinter journey in comfort. If it could not 

 (as by the best canons it should) be a flight from death, a race with 

 the grim terrors of frost and hunger, we should at least refrain 

 from the almost sacrilegious levity of making a picnic of it. But 

 it almost was a picnic and I at least was enjoying myself. For good 

 or ill, we were evidently unable to affect the destiny of the Karluk 

 in any way and so she was, in a sense, off our minds. Nearly every 

 Eskimo we met on the coast (and we met more than double the num- 

 ber that I have had the temerity to discuss in this narrative) was an 

 old friend. Then there was my insatiable interest in the study and 



♦This map has since been published by the U. S. Geological Survey in 

 connection with LefBngwell's painstaking and excellent monograph on "The 

 Canning River District, Alaska." 



