THE ESKIMO OF STUPART BAY. 109 



black tobacco— the natives had none and were longing for a smoke. 

 We could not leave the house without being assailed with cries for 

 tobacco and questions as to when the steamer would arrive. Polulick 

 is the Eskimo word for steamer. Not being able to obtain tobacco 

 they would beg for the ash out of our pipes ; this they used as snuff, 

 which they consider the next best thing to tobacco for smoking. 



The summer wore on. I had expected the steamer about July 

 10th ; by 15th she might have forced a passage, but the ice did not 

 really move until 18th. July passed and no steamer. By August 

 4th there was scarcely a piece of ice visible — all seemed clear. I dis- 

 cussed the pros and cons of the question with my assistant and the 

 men, and we unanimously concluded that should relief not arrive by 

 Ausfust 21st we would start for Ungava in the boat. It would have 

 been impossible to have remained another winter. Very little pro- 

 visions and no fuel was left. The winter might set in in September, 

 and as I could not be certain that the Hudson Bay officers at Ungava 

 could keep four men for a whole year, time had to be allowed for 

 a boat voyage to Nain, on the Labrador Coast. We of course inferred 

 that the steamer had come to grief and had perhaps been wrecked. 



During my stay on the shore of the Straits I saw many beautiful 

 Auroras, which in nearly all cases were accompanied by great magnetic 

 disturbances. The mean temperature of the year was 12.5 ; that of 

 January was 23° below zero, and of July 43° above ; the lowest tem- 

 perature registered during Januaiy was 35° below zero, and the high- 

 est 5° below. The daily range of temperature was at all times small, 

 but more especially in the winter months. The mean temperature 

 for February was, compared with other winter months, very mild, 

 probably unusually mild, the mean temperature being but 3° below 

 zero ; the same month in Toronto the mean temperature was the 

 lowest, but one, that had occurred in forty-five years. Scattered 

 drift ice was plentiful in the Straits until the end of the first week 

 in September, 1H84 ; from that until the end of October we saw a few 

 " bergs," but no field ice. On the 24th October the Straits froze 

 over, and lew days after that date navigation would have been well 

 nigh impracticable. On the bays and inlets of the sea, ice formed to 

 a thickness of 5^ feet. Until after July 18 last summer we saw 

 scai'cely any signs of water in the Straits, but by August 4th the ice 

 had almost all disappeared. We crossed the ice in the bay on July 



