46 



Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913-18 



This one was much larger and stronger. Near, too, was found an old whittling 

 knife and a short-bladed knife much rusted. There was a grassy mound of 

 earth nearby, but we could find no further trace of instruments haying been 

 left there. At the head of the sand spit which forms Cape Kellett, is a large 

 deserted village of thirty or more houses. They seem to have been built of 

 sod around a frame work of whale bones. Some of the houses are now crumbling 

 away owing to the inroad of the. sea, but the majority of them are still intact, 

 but very much overgrown with moss and tundra. The earth nearby is very 

 much stained with whale or seal oil, and in the heat of summer there is still 

 an odor of decaying animal matter to be noticed in the vicinity. In winter 

 this attracts a number of foxes that dig in the snow and throw up yellow stained 

 turf, but one cannot see that they get anything to eat for their pains. Because 

 of having to do other work connected with the boats of the Expedition, I was 

 unable to do any digging around here; but there is no doubt that the site is a 

 rich field for anthropologists. 



"During the course of the expedition I travelled almost the complete 

 circumference of Banks island, crossed overland over the southern section 



(Photo by G. H. Wilkins) 

 Fig. 6. View of the south coast of Banks island, near Cape Lambton 



and hunted over the country for many miles inland from nearly all parts of the 

 coast. The ruined village at Cape Kellett was the only one seen, but one could 

 scarcely go twenty-five miles in any direction without seeing a tent ring or 

 some chips of drift wood, showing that at some time or other it had been a 

 hunting ground of some human race." 



In reading this account we are at once struck by the fact that it was at 

 Cape Kellett that the western natives established a settlement, not at Nelson 

 head; further that there was this one settlement only, for no other ruins were 

 found anywhere else along the coast. The tent rings and the semicircular "blinds" 

 for hunting seem rather to indicate Copper Eskimos, for we find similar remains 

 in every part of Victoria island and on the mainland around Coronation gulf. 

 Another point to notice is that the inhabitants were essentially whale and seal 

 hunters, and this presupposes the possession of the large skin boats called 

 umiaks. Here we have a basis for a reasonable theory. Whales are very com- 

 mon between the mainland and Banks island, and they have always been hunted 



