576 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 



ber of wolves about. I have always thought that the howling 

 of wolves on a quiet, starlit night was the most romantic sort of 

 music. During the winter in Melville Island we could stand listen- 

 ing outside the camp for hours to the howling of a nearby pack 

 and the replies of others from a distance. Occasionally they came 

 so close that we could see them in the starlight when the moon 

 was below the horizon. On clear, moonlit nights they had the 

 wisdom to keep away, for wolves as we have found them are un- 

 cannily careful. 



October 25th Storkerson's party got back — all of them, for 

 they had not found the Bear. They had not needed to go to the 

 cache at Dealy Island for they had found a depot made in 1910 

 by Captain Bernier at Winter Harbor. It seems strange that 

 we did not know about this depot. I dined with Captain Bernier 

 in 1908 just before my second expedition, and he told me of de- 

 pots he had made and of his intention to go North again. I think 

 that in Ottawa in 1913 I must have heard some mention of a depot 

 at Winter Harbor but if so I nearly forgot it. Bernier's books and 

 reports were all on the Karluk and lost. But Storkerson now re- 

 minded me that in the summer of 1914 when we were waiting for 

 the Star on northern Banks Island I had told him and Ole that 

 I thought there was a depot at Winter Harbor and had discussed 

 going there in case the Star did not come. We had decided that 

 my vague notion was not to be relied on, and also that the depot 

 at Dealy Island, being more than sixty years old, was too ancient 

 to be relied on either. Anyway, the arrival of the Sachs had taken 

 these considerations out of our minds until Storkerson recalled 

 them when, some miles from Winter Harbor, they saw through 

 their glasses a frame house very much of the type you find among 

 new settlers on the western prairies of Canada. 



The house proved to contain four and a half tons of food of 

 which there follows a complete list as copied from the record left 

 by Captain Bernier: Pilot bread, 1,000 lbs.; flour, 1,000 lbs.; sugar, 

 436 lbs.; coffee, 80 lbs.; tea, 112 lbs.; salt pork, 800 lbs.; baking 

 powder, 12 lbs.; condensed milk, 48 lbs.; desiccated carrots, 50 

 lbs.; mustard, 12 lbs.; pepper, 2 lbs.; salt, 50 lbs.; rolled oats, 100 

 lbs.; smoking tobacco, 10 lbs.; chewing tobacco, 21 lbs.; Bovril, 

 240 lbs.; pemmican, 360 lbs.; butter, 60 lbs.; soap, 10 lbs.; matches, 

 1 gross packages; kerosene, 1 barrel; desiccated potatoes, 10 lbs.; 

 honey, 48 lbs.; peas, 50 lbs.; ginger, 10 lbs.; macaroni, 25 lbs.; 

 beans, 50 lbs.; 1 shotgun with 500 rounds; 1 Ross rifle with 1,000 



