THE nth A UGUST AT REPULSE BA Y. 403 



remaining boat and the stores, in good health. A feast of venison and fish 

 was soon prepared for the weary and hungry travellers, and as the venison 

 was cooked first, the men began their meal with steaks and finished it with 

 salmon as second course. Eae then sat down to " think out " his course for 

 the future. " This was to me," he writes, " the most anxious period during 

 the expedition ; nor will this appear strange when I mention that it was 

 necessary to decide, and that promptly, on one of two modes of proceeding, 

 namely, whether to leave the whole survey to be completed during the 

 following spring and summer, or to endeavour to follow it up this autumn. 

 After mature consideration, I determined on adopting the first of these 

 measures and giving up all hopes of prosecuting the survey at present." 

 This determination was arrived at in full knowledge of the fact, that if he 

 remained at Eepulse Bay, he and his men ran the risk of starving, as they 

 could obtain no promise of supplies from the natives, and all the provisions 

 they had brought with them would not go far towards supporting them 

 during the winter. 



Having resolved upon his course, Eae proceeded at once to action. 

 Two things were to be done immediately — a site to be selected for building 

 a house for the winter, and a plan to be matured for obtaining a supply of 

 food. A narrow valley on the north shore of Gibson's Cove was promptly 

 selected as the site for the winter quarters, and preparations for building 

 were at once commenced. This done, Eae, with his rifle on his shoulder, 

 set out every day, ranging over the neighbourhood in search of suitable fish- 

 ing stations on the inlets of the bay, and keeping an exceedingly wide-awake 

 look-out for game. Brought up among the wild highlands of Scotland, the 

 Doctor was a sportsman by instinct ; and it is well that he thoroughly en- 

 joyed the deer-stalking and duck-shooting excursions upon which his party 

 were to be mainly dependent for food during the long Arctic night, when 

 neither fish, fowl, nor four-footed animals are to be got. On the evening of 

 the 12th August, the highest festival in the sportsman's calendar, Eae, when 

 on his way to set a net in a lake near the shore, fell in with a covey of ptar- 

 migan, and in an hour or two bagged eighteen brace of birds. " Knocking 

 down these birds on this day," he says, " made me half fancy myself among 

 the grouse in my own barren, native hills." On the 14th and 15th ninety 

 salmon were obtained at the fishing stations. 



On the 16th the men who had been sent back to the shores of Committee 

 Bay to bring across the boat, and who had dragged it over nearly the whole 

 way to Eepulse Bay, and had then secured it till it should be wanted in the 

 iDoming spring, returned into camp, and after a rest were set to work in pre- 

 paration for the winter — ^building the house, setting nets, hunting deer, and 

 gathering fuel. " On the 2d September," writes Eae, " our house was finished. 

 Its internal dimensions were 20 feet long by 14 feet broad, height in front 



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