Exploration of the Country 29 



ago, i.e., until nearly the middle of the nineteenth century. No Copper Eskimos 

 have ever been seen farther west than Stapylton bay, though traces of them 

 exist as far as Wise point, where they seem to have met their western neighbours. 

 Richardson noticed that they had marked most of the prominent points around 

 Mount Barrow, at Cape Krusenstern, by erecting piles of stones similar to the 

 cairns that the shepherds in Scotland build for landmarks, and adds that these 

 erections were occasionally noticed after doubling Cape Parry, though they 

 were not so numerous. This is precisely what one might expect in a region where 

 two peoples, overlapped. At Young point there were several caches of this nature, 

 and near them were some typical implements of Copper Eskimo culture. In 

 1915, Dr. Anderson noticed about a dozen stone caches and three or four stone 

 tent rings some two hundred yards inland from the sea, eight miles east of De 

 Witt Clinton point. Even as far west as Langton bay these stone caches are 

 found, though there some of them are probably graves, since the western 

 natives often covered their dead to protect them from wild animals and birds 

 of prey. In the vicinity of the Burrow islands, Darnley bay, in 1911, Dr. 

 Anderson discovered a stone cooking-pot broken and mended with copper 

 splices, and a blubber pounder of mus^-ox horn, objects that were undoubtedly 

 made by Copper Eskimos. 



Richardson and Kendall met none of the Copper Eskimos on this journey, 

 though they found that a party had just quitted Bloody fall, probably frightened 

 by the presence of white men. Back, however, encountered them when he 

 descended the Back or Great Fish river in 1833. All down its course he had 

 noticed their traces, and at Lake Franklin he finally came on a small party 

 fishing. He remained with them only one day, but in that time succeeded in 

 establishing cordial relations. Five years later, in 1838 and 1839, Dease and 

 Simpson explored the coast from the mouth of the Coppermine to beyond Back 

 river. In 1838 they saw two or three Eskimo families below Bloody fall, but the 

 natives were alarmed at their presence and fled over the ice towards some 

 distant islands. Eskimo caches were noticed at various points along the coast 

 east of the Coppermine, placed upon lofty rocks out of reach of beasts of prey; 

 but they saw none of their owners, who had all gone inland to hunt caribou after 

 their winter seal-hunt among the islands. Close to Cape Turnagain was a place 

 where three Eskimo tents had been pitched in the preceding year, with a little 

 stone fire-place on one side, and near Cape Franklin they passed the remains of 

 a larger camp where there were several human skeletons; but they nowhere 

 found recent traces of the people. 



In the following year they were more successful. Some thirty Eskimos 

 were encamped at Richardson river, and one family, whose tent was placed 

 on an island in mid-stream, was left behind when the others fled precipitately 

 to the hills. With this family the explorers were able to communicate, and while 

 the inforination they gathered was of little value, they yet left a favourable 

 impression on the natives which proved of much service to Richardson ten years 

 later. East of Cape Alexander, Dease and Simpson saw vestiges of Eskimos 

 wherever they landed, for the most part very old; but they never fell in with the 

 natives again during, their journey. 



In 1848 Richardson again made the journey from the mouth of the Mackenzie 

 to the Coppermine river, ascending the latter to Great Bear Lake. On this 

 occasion he was accompanied by Rae, and the party was ferried across the mouth 

 of the Rae river by the Eskimos. Rae returned in the two following years, and 

 explored the coast of the mainland from Cape Lambert to Cape Alexander, 

 and the south coast of Victoria island from Cape Back to Cape Alfred. Besides 

 meeting his old acquaintances on the Rae river, he had an interview with three 

 Eskimos near Cape Flinders, and saw others on a neighbouring island. He says 

 of the Gape Flinders natives, " These people appeared to have been poorly fed 

 as they were much leaner than Esquimaux generally are; they had never been 



