THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 447 



the first time in lier career this had not been done and she was 

 lying in the ice of Bernard Harbor. With the coming of the spring 

 thaw the same thing happened to her that had happened to the 

 Duchess of Bedford of the Anglo-American Polar Expedition, the 

 same thing, indeed, that is bound to happen to any similarly un- 

 protected wooden ship. The caulking in the seams freezes to the 

 ice, and when the ice expands and contracts with changes of 

 temperature the caulking is plucked out from the seams of the 

 ship. Vessels intended to lie in the ice during the winter are 

 protected against this action by a hardwood sheathing put on as 

 much for this purpose as for strengthening the ship against its 

 encounters with the ice during summer navigation. When Wil- 

 kins arrived there was already much thaw water in the harbor 

 and the Star had filled through her opened seams. Fortunately 

 the harbor where she lay was so shallow that she did not com- 

 pletely sink. Wilkins now had a difficult and disagreeable task 

 in getting her out, re-rigging and cleaning her for the summer 

 work, and getting into condition the rusty, water-filled engines. 



Contrary to our experience at Cape Kellett and that of every- 

 body on the mainland from Cape Bathurst west, the spring in 

 Dolphin and Union Straits was exceptionally backward so far as 

 ice movement was concerned, and it was late in July before the 

 Star was able to get out. Wilkins then took members of the 

 southern section down to the vicinity of Bathurst Inlet, returning 

 as quickly as he could but too late to connect with us at Cape 

 Bathurst and too late to prevent my purchasing the Polar Bear, 

 a thing I should certainly not have done if I had not been con- 

 vinced that the Star was going to fail us again. 



On reaching Bathurst and receiving his instructions there, Wil- 

 kins discharged Crawford, who up to this point had been acting 

 as engineer, and taking the work of engineer himself proceeded to 

 Kellett. He would have liked to wait for me there and did linger 

 for several days, but our unfortunate delays with the Polar Bear 

 made the season so late that he did not dare to wait longer, and 

 left the last week of August to attempt taking the Star to the 

 northwest corner of Banks Island or farther if he could. It had 

 been his hope to cross to Melville Island and enter Liddon Gulf 

 or one of the bays just west. Had he succeeded it would have 

 been a wonderful stroke, for I know of no winter base in the 

 Arctic that I should prefer to one on Liddon Gulf. But he had 

 been prevented from doing this and now lay about twenty miles 

 south of Cape Alfred. 



