624 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 



bulls were feeding quietly and near them were eight yearlings. 

 When I was half a mile away and my head was showing above 

 a ridge, several of the yearlings started on a sudden run. At first 

 I thought they had seen me, though that was really not possible, 

 and when I looked at them through the binoculars I saw they were 

 chasing a fox. Three or four of the yearlings chased it for two 

 or three hundred yards and then returned to where the rest were 

 feeding. The fox now waited a little, as if to see if the caribou had 

 given up the game, and then ran in among them again and was 

 chased by others. Sometimes the fox dodged in and out among 

 them and when it had secured the interest of the yearlings and 

 induced them to the chase, it would run around the three old bulls 

 using them as a sort of protection from the yearlings. The old 

 bulls paid not the slightest attention to either fox or yearlings 

 and went on feeding quietly. I watched the game about half an 

 hour, after which I mounted the ridge and approached till they 

 saw me. The first to see me were the old bulls which ran off at 

 full speed. They had perhaps a hundred-yard start over the 

 young bulls which were, however, so much fleeter that they caught 

 up and passed the old bulls within half a mile. I have seldom 

 seen caribou run so far without stopping, but these must have run 

 nearly a mile. After two or three stops the yearlings came back 

 and approached within fifty yards of me several times. All ran 

 with their mouths open, though chiefly at a trot after the first mile 

 sprint. The big bulls kept their course for two or three miles and 

 then commenced feeding. 



A beacon near the southeast corner of Melville Island I came 

 upon on June 25th, about half a mile inland and a hundred feet 

 above sea level. The monument had a total height of four or five 

 feet, of which the base, about two feet, was a big rock, and in a 

 crevice of the rock was a common fruit jar containing the follow- 

 ing record: 



RECORD 



from 



C. G. S. ''ARCTIC" 



"Know all men that on this date, Kith August, 1909, the Canadian 

 Government Steamer Arctic passed here bound for Pond's Inlet. 



"RemarJcs: We anchored here on the 15th instant on account of the 

 Byam Martin Channel being full of heavy ice. We wintered at Winter 

 Harbor. Left 12th August. Ice just gone. We all well on board. 



"J. E. BERNIER, 

 Commanding Officer." 



