OVER THE ARCTIC MOUNTAINS 209 



two hundred and fifty miles in a few hours over three 

 days, which was about two days better time than any 

 one else was known to have made. 



At Herschel Island I had considered the possibility of 

 walking straight south over the mountains and I should 

 have tried this had there been any natives available to 

 go with me. I am writing this story, from memory and 

 notes, fifteen years later and with ten years of arctic 

 experience to my advantage. It now seems silly to me 

 that I did not go straight south from Herschel Island 

 over the mountains alone. With nothing heavier to carry 

 than a message, a man needs no companion for a 

 journey of one or two hundred miles through uninhabited 

 country. Those are my ideas now, but I did not have 

 them then nor did it seem to occur to any one who was 

 then at Herschel Island that a man unaccompanied could 

 safely make such a journey. 



I had decided to go by way of Macpherson because 

 the police had assured me that I would have no trouble 

 in getting Indians to help me across the mountains from 

 there. I now took the case to Firth and he said there 

 should not be any great difficulty about it, although the 

 arrangements could have been more easily made had I 

 been there two weeks earlier while large numbers of 

 Indians were at the Fort for their summer trading. 

 There were no good men available now and I would have 

 to take what I could get. He thought it could be man- 

 aged somehow. 



It took only a few hours to negotiate with the Indians 

 and to make all arrangements. During that time Firth 

 gave me valuable information and advice. He had him- 

 self been in that country for more than thirty years, sta- 

 tioned not always at Macpherson but sometimes at La 



