II 



THE PROVISION QUESTION 



EXCEPT in the summer, when the caribou are 

 running in vast herds, venture into the Barren 

 Grounds entails a struggle with both cold and 

 hunger. It is either a feast or a famine; more 

 frequently the latter than the former. So there 

 was nothing extraordinary in being upon our 

 third day without food at the first musk-ox killing 

 to which I have referred. Yet the lack of nour- 

 ishment was not perhaps as trying as the wind, 

 which seemed to sweep directly from the frozen 

 seas, so strong that we had to bend low in 

 pushing forward against it, and so bitter as to 

 cut our faces cruelly. Throughout my journey 

 into this silent land of the lone North the wind 

 caused me more real suffering than the semi- 

 starvation state in which we were more or less 

 continuously. Indeed, for the first few weeks I 

 had utmost difficulty in travelling; the wind ap- 

 peared to take the very breath out of my body 



32 



