408 DR JOHN EAE'S EXPLORATIONS— 18iQA7. 



improved upon this plan. Early in February a wolf had been observed 

 prowling about Fort Hope, and the interpreter resolved to get rid of him. 

 He made use of the usual contrivance of the bait, line, and fixed gun. But 

 instead of having a distance of fifteen yards between the bait and the gun, 

 he placed the former at the distance of no more than a foot from the muzzle 

 of the gun, which was carefully concealed from view by means of a small 

 snow house which he raised above it, and which was pierced with a port-hole 

 in a line with the muzzle and the bait, so that the shot could scarcely miss 

 the head of the animal. When Ouligbuck went to his gun next morning, he 

 saw the track of the wolf and followed him to the dog-kennel, in which he 

 had comfortably taken up his quarters. He immediately took the brute by 

 the tail, dragged him out much against his will, and despatched him with an 

 ice chisel. The animal measured 5 feet 9 inches from the nose to the tip of 

 the tail (the tail being 19 inches long), and his height to the shoulder was 2 

 feet 8 inches. 



Dr Eae was much interested in the Eskimos who visited Fort Hope 

 during February. One of the women wore a brass wheel fastened to her 

 dress by way of ornament, which had evidently formed part of some instru- 

 ment left in the neighbouring region by a former explorer, Akkeeoulik, the 

 man who had promised to bring the oil for sale to Dr Eae, but who had 

 failed to keep his promise, appeared one day with a heavy iron hoop which 

 he " had taken ofi" a large stick," evidently a mast-head or bowsprit end of 

 the abandoned "Fury" or "Victory," Several of these visitors had seen 

 Ooblooria, Ikmallik, and other Eskimos mentioned by Sir John Ross ; and 

 they were able to tell Dr Eae that Tulluahua, whom Eoss had furnished with 

 a wooden leg, was dead. This free and intelligent intercourse with the 

 natives doubtless suggested to Dr Eae the method by which, on a subsequent 

 expedition, he ascertained the fate of Franklin and the crews of the " Erebus " 

 and "Terror." His experience at Eeptdse Bay proved to him that the 

 Eskimos could remember and describe events after the lapse of years, and 

 that they illustrated their narratives of past occurrences by exhibiting well- 

 preserved relics, which threw light on these occurrences — as the beads that 

 had been given by Parry twenty-three years previously, and the brass wheel 

 and iron hoop which had undoubtedly been the property of some predecessor 

 in Arctic exploration. It was by the practical appHcation of the experience 

 gained on this expedition — ^by collecting the authenticated evidence of the 

 natives, and by purchasing from them many articles known to have belonged 

 to Franklin and his officers, that Eae was able to bring home the earliest 

 intimation respecting the result of the great expedition of 1845. 



As early as the middle of February there were tokens of reawakening 

 life and of the return of spring in the vicinity of Eepulse Bay. Unwilling 

 to lose a day of the coming season, Eae gave his carpenter orders to com- 



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