APPENDIX 747 



willing to learn, carried out his agreement for the summer very credit- 

 ably, and rendered loyal service to the expedition for the remainder of 

 the year. The party was to proceed by sled to Tree River, or the 

 Annielik (in Gray's Bay) ; during the early summer to work geologically 

 up some of the rivers in that region, moving gradually along the coast 

 to Cape Barrow, the western extremity of Bathurst inlet, where Chip- 

 man and I would meet them with the Star about the first of August, 

 bringing the gasoline launch and additional supplies. 



During the early summer of 1915, Chipman began a stadimeter 

 survey of the region about Bernard Harbor, with 20-foot contours. 

 Johansen did some dredging for marine life in the inner and outer 

 harbors, and completed his collections of the plants and insects of the 

 region, while my own collections of birds and mammals was consider- 

 ably increased. Quantities of salmon trout were sun dried for winter 

 dog-food, and some caribou meat for our own consumption. The few 

 families of Eskimos who remained about during the early summer 

 dried large numbers of lake trout, catching them with hooks through 

 the ice in June and early in July, and spearing and gaffing large num- 

 bers of salmon trout which were impounded in stone weirs when they 

 started to run up the streams in July. By the last of July all the 

 local Eskimos had departed on their summer packing expeditions to 

 look for caribou inland. 



The summer of 1915 was late and cold, and the ice melted slowly, 

 but by July 20 all of it was out of the harbor. Bay ice disappears with 

 wonderful rapidity at that season, the hot sunshine cutting away the 

 top almost visibly. After the harbor and the large bay south of Chantry 

 Island were free. Dolphin and Union Strait was still pretty full. Broad 

 leads opened up outside for a little, but the ice seemed pretty solid to 

 the eastward. A steady, strong northwest wind for a week kept driving 

 the floes down into and blocking up the Strait. 



After being held for nearly two weeks after the break-up by heavy 

 ice packed into Dolphin and Union Strait by continued westerly winds, 

 a spell of easterly wind started the ice moving westward again, and we 

 worked the Star out through east of Chantry Island August 9, finding 

 the ice slowly moving westward. In due course we reached Port Epworth, 

 the splendid harbor at the mouth of Tree River. We found O'Neill and 

 Cox camped in a little bay just east of Cape Barrow. 



The Star put down a large cache of provisions and gasoline at Port 

 Epworth. and another at Cape Barrow for use during the summer of 

 1915 and the possibility of sledge work in the spring of 1916. She then 

 started westward, having been delayed only three days after getting out 

 of the harbor in making the eastern trip. With a stiff breeze behind 

 her, she was back at Bernard Harbor within twenty-four hours, and 

 finding all the ice had moved to the westward, kept on going and soon 

 reached Baillie Island. The party who went west on her were Wilkins, 

 commanding; Castel, Crawford (discharged at Baillie Island to go out 



