THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 641 



dietary of these people as compared with ovibos. Towards the 

 southwestern part of the island we began to find the feathers of 

 geese that had been moulting this summer or last, and an abundance 

 of goose bones around the campsites. None of the camps seemed 

 of great age; certainly great age cannot be demonstrated. Prob- 

 ably a century w^ould cover the oldest. Most of them are from the 

 period since McClure abandoned the Investigator, judging from 

 frequent traces of the ship, generally in the form of splinters of 

 painted boards. 



On August 13th when about eighty miles northeast of the Kel- 

 lett base we found coal, or rather wood that was partly turned to 

 coal. It was reddish in color and burned with a fragrant smoke. 

 Without the heavy sweetness of incense, it was agreeable enough 

 so that we stood in the way of the smoke to sniff it. As in Loug- 

 heed Island, this ''coal" was on the surface and easy to secure, 

 though the quantity in evidence was not nearly so large. It out- 

 cropped here and there from a belt about two hundred yards long 

 north and south and ten to twenty yards wide. It was most abun- 

 dant at the surface about a little knoll on which we built a small 

 cairn, piling rocks and gravel on top of a heap of coal. There was 

 mixed with it a great deal of fossil gum resembling amber, but 

 the nodules found were never as large as an olive. 



The country was beautiful, with large level stretches of bottom 

 lands. Caribou were moderately numerous but their traces were 

 still more abundant. On the whole, this looked like an ideal site 

 for a summer hunting camp and even for a winter camp if there 

 were any object in living there, but it has not nearly the strategic 

 value, from the point of view of an explorer, possessed by the coal 

 mine in Lougheed Island. 



We were more than half-way across Banks Island and all was 

 going well, including the recovery of Sapsuk which was now almost 

 complete. It was a fine morning and we were camped where fuel 

 was unusually abundant (Cassiopc tetragona). There were several 

 aluminum plates in our equipment each of which bore the mark of 

 its user with whom it was optional to wash it, an option that had 

 not been exercised for some time. This morning Emiu boiled 

 some water to wash his plate with and suggested that he should 

 wash everybody's plate. He was doing this when I left camp 

 to hunt. 



Sapsuk, nearly well, was still exempt from carrying a pack, and 

 remained at the campsite snoopin^ around after the men with the 

 pack dogs had started. When they had gone about a hundred 



