THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 543 



feared was not with any local wind for we could have guarded 

 against that; but there were plainly strong tide currents, for along 

 the beach the ice kept shifting back and forth. Once we thought 

 it was all going but it stopped after a few dozen yards. It would 

 have been no fun for a seal hunter to find himself drifting off with 

 that ice. A whole party with a sledge and outfit might have en- 

 joyed it more, but a man alone would have found it an unpleasant 

 adventure. 



So the only thing to burn was caribou fat and boards, chiefly 

 those picked up at MacMillan's beacon. We stuck them up on 

 edge to dry in the sun and wind and protected them from the 

 rain. Most of them were about three-eighths of an inch thick and 

 from eighteen inches to two feet long, and we made them into 

 standard fuel portions consisting of a piece about three inches 

 wide. One such piece whittled or split and burned with about a 

 quarter of a pound of caribou suet, sufficed to cook a meal. But 

 only meals of a certain sort. The heads of caribou are the best 

 parts and thereafter the vertebrae, ribs and briskets, but all these 

 are bony and with scarcity of fuel we could not afford to boil 

 bones. For the only time in my northern experience we threw 

 nearly every caribou head away at the place of killing. We re- 

 moved the bones from the rib meat and to that extent were able 

 to eat the meat we liked, but apart from that we lived mainly on 

 ham and shoulder meat cut into pieces about the size of sugar 

 cubes. Meat that is cut into small pieces and put over the fire 

 in cold water is done when it boils or a little before. For the first 

 part of our stay on Lougheed Island we used to cook two meals 

 of this sort daily, but later when we had been able to dry some 

 caribou meat to eat we used to have but one cooked meal. 



The long weeks of wading through ice water before landing on 

 Lougheed Island and the summer spent there with inadequate fuel 

 came nearer to being hardship than any of my other experiences 

 in the North. But Charlie and Noice were cheerful the whole time 

 and I have never heard a word of complaint about the climate 

 or the country or the food, though we all talked rather wistfully 

 about the possibility of finding something to burn. For equanim- 

 ity they were on the whole the most admirable companions I have 

 had on any sledge trip. 



We had come ashore because we feared the break-up of the ice 

 and the break-up, too, of our sled. But other purposes were to ex- 

 plore this land thoroughly and to get a good rate on our watches. 

 Occasional days were beautifully clear and permitted extensive 



