THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 549 



too, was rapidly waning and it was one of our main concerns to 

 reach Cape Murray while yet there was enough light so that our 

 party could be of some use in the fall hunt. For we were counting 

 on finding Natkusiak's party waiting for us. 



The men took the sled along the land, as usual, while I traveled 

 overland looking for caribou and learning what I could of the coun- 

 try. I have known since I first began to travel in the North that 

 this method of advance is not customary, but it is only since my 

 return from this expedition that I have come to realize fully how 

 severely a method which appeared to me logical and indeed the 

 only sensible one has been condemned by many explorers. A typ- 

 ical example is from the diary of Lieutenant Sherard Osborn, 

 written in April, 1853, on the north coast of Bathurst Island at a 

 place that could be seen from our Lookout Hill of Lougheed Is- 

 land. 



"We had to-day a painful proof of the danger of people going 

 away from their party in chase of game. Lieutenant May left us to 

 follow along the upper slope of the adjacent land; the sudden in- 

 crease of the gale shut us out from his view, and at the same time a 

 fine herd of deer came in sight; he followed them, lost them, and 

 saw another herd; still following, and trusting to securing his re- 

 turn by some recognized marks, it was not until he found himself 

 tired, without a prospect of procuring any addition to the rations 

 of his party, that he discovered his route to be a wrong one, and 

 we became alarmed at his lengthened absence. The temperature 

 continued to fall, and the gale abated nothing. The sledges en- 

 camped, and after pemmican Captain Richards and Mr. Herbert 

 left with two light sledges to seek him, the weather gradually clear- 

 ing up, and most happily so, for after a time they met Lieutenant 

 May, who was much exhausted, and returned with him to the camp 

 late in the evening. As many as thirty deer had been seen in all 

 by Mr. May. Eight P. M. temperature minus five degrees." * 



This adventure that seemed so serious to Lieutenant Osborn oc- 

 curred on the 26th of April when there is no darkness even at mid- 

 night and when, as their record showed, the temperature very 

 seldom went lower than five or ten degrees below zero even at night. 

 A dozen other members of my party at different times have left 

 the sledges along the coast and have hunted inland, perhaps as 

 much as a thousand different times all together, and often towards 



* "Further Papers Relative to the Recent Arctic Expeditions in Search 

 of Sir John Franklin," London, 1855, pp. 198-199. 



