RAE STOPPED BY ICE. 481 



that the latter had never seen white men, nor their boats or ships. They 

 had not, therefore, seen any party belonging to the missing expedition. 

 On the 16th, the coast being still impracticable from ice, Eae ran into 

 Back's Inlet and explored Eae River, discovered and named in the previ- 

 ous season by Richardson. At thirty miles from its mouth, this stream 

 was eighty to two hundred yards wide, running with a strong current, but 

 exceedingly shallow. On the 24th, the party arrived at the spot where the 

 boat had been left the previous year. The Eskimos had broken up the 

 boats to obtain the iron-work, but had left tents, oil-cloths, pemmican, and 

 ammunition, uninjured. On the 30th, Rae arrived at Cape Krusenstern. 

 " We were now," he writes, " at the most convenient, though not the nearest 

 point for making the traverse to Wollaston Land, and there was no neces- 

 sity for our proceeding farther along the shore, even had we been able to 

 do so, which at present was impossible, the high rocks presenting an un- 

 surmountable barrier on the one hand, and the ice, by its roughness, equally 

 impassable on the other. . . . Our situation was most tantalising to all 

 the party ; occasionally, at turn of tide, a pool of water a mile or more in 

 extent would appear near us, and everything would be prepared for em- 

 barkation at a minute's notice in expectation of the opening increasing and 

 permitting us to cross to Douglas Island, but our hopes were always dis- 

 appointed." 



This tiresome state of affairs lasted till the 19th August, when a rather 

 wider extent of open water was seen in the offing. After waiting for 

 hours for a good opportunity of forcing his way through a close-packed 

 stream of ice that was grinding along the rocks as it drove onward, Rae 

 pushed off, and after a few narrow escapes, reached comparatively open 

 water where oars could be used. The party had pulled seven miles out 

 from shore, and were within three miles of Douglas Island, when they 

 encountered an ice-stream so closely packed and so rough that they " could 

 neither pass over nor through it," A retreat to the main shore was the un- 

 avoidable result of this defeat. On the 22d, Rae ascended a hill near his 

 encampment, from which a fine view was obtained, and swept the shores of 

 Wollaston Land with his telescope. " As far as I could see," he writes, 

 " nothing but white ice forced up into heaps was visible." The fine weather 

 had now broken up, and Rae, chagrined and disappointed, gave orders to return 

 to the Coppermine. On the 24th, he entered the river, and next day, in 

 attempting to tow the^boat up Bloody Fall, he lost one of his crew, Albert, 

 the interpreter, who was drowned in the rapid. 



Without further accident, Rae arrived at Fort Confidence on the 1st 



September. All the stores having been previously packed, he set out next 



day, reached Fort Simpson on the 26th, and proceeding by the usual route, 



arrived at the headquarters of the Hudson's Bay Company. Meantime Sir 



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