30 Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913-18 



in communication with white people before, and were at first much alarmed, 

 but we very soon gained their complete confidence." The only other place at 

 which he met with natives was along the southwest coast of Victoria island. 

 There were thirteen Eskimo lodges a few miles to seaward of Cape Hamilton, 

 with the inhabitants of which he established relations. None of the women 

 showed themselves, but all the men were well and cleanly dressed in deerskin. 

 They were all very fat, having evidently abundance of seal's flesh and fat, 

 large quantities of which were carefully deposited in seal-skin bags under the 

 snow. It was difficult, he says, to make them understand that no return was 

 expected for some presents he made them. 



But though he met with no more natives, Rae found traces of them in 

 several places. Cambridge bay seemed to be one of their favourite resorts, 

 judging by the numerous stone-marks and several caches of provisions, clothing, 

 etc., deposited on the banks of the river there. He observed that it was doubt- 

 less an excellent fishing-station immediately after the breaking up of the ice, 

 since he saw many salmon sporting in the transparent waters in the vicinity. 

 Between Cambridge bay and Pelly point there was nothing to indicate that the 

 Eskimos had recently visited the points at which his party touched. One other 

 observation that he made is worth noticing. The Eskimos, he says, have a 

 great respect for caches of any kind. Some that he had made himself on the 

 southwest coast of Victoria island were left untouched, notwithstanding that 

 one, or perhaps all of them had been seen by the natives. 



McClure was the next navigator to fall in with the Eskimos. During the 

 spring of 1851 one of his sledge parties came on five families near Berkeley point, 

 at the southern entrance of Prince of Wales strait between Victoria island and 

 Banks island. They seemed very simple and honest, and when presented with 

 anything, they appeared incapable of supposing that anyone would give them 

 an article without expecting an equivalent. His fellow-explorer, Collinson, 

 spent the following winter, 1851-2, in Walker bay, and about fifty of these natives 

 built their snow huts near him. A sledge party under Lieutenant Jago met about 

 a hundred others in Prince Albert sound. None were seen north of 72° 10' N. in 

 Prince of Wales strait. 



Collinson sailed east through Coronation gulf in the following summer, and 

 wintered in Cambridge bay. Rae had seen only caches here, but Collinsoii met 

 the natives themselves. He says: " The number seen by us in this vicinity I 

 estimated at between two and three hundred, of which between fifty and a hun- 

 dred returned in the spring; the inner harbour, the large lake west of Mount Pelly, 

 and the peninsula about Cape Colborne, forming their hunting and fishing 

 ground from May until October; at which period they follow the deer to the 

 mainland, where, having first collected together in the neighbourhood of the 

 Finlayson islands, they winter; but the precise spot we did not discover; it 

 could not, however, have been very far from us, as we were visited continually 

 during the winter. I fully expected to have found them on the Finlayson Islands 

 in the spring, as it was usual for them to come from that direction; but on my 

 visit in April, there were no signs of winter huts, although numerous caches 

 showed them to be a place of great resort. "^ 



For fifty more years this region remained unvisited, then David T. Hanbury 

 in 1902 made a journey from Chesterfield inlet to Ogden bay, and along the 

 coast to the Coppermine river, which he ascended, as the earlier explorers had 

 done, to Great Bear lake and the Mackenzie river. He first met with the 

 Copper Eskimos, about forty-five people altogether, a few miles inland from 

 Ogden bay; the natives, following their usual custom, gave a dance in his 

 honour. From this point to as far west as Gray's bay small parties of natives 

 were met with in several places; but from there onward no more were seen till he 

 reached the Dismal lakes, where he found four tents, but only three people living 

 in the m at the time. Hanbury's journey was one of the most successful that 



"Collinson, p. 284. 



