178 ACROSS THE SUB-ARCTICS OF CANAD 
delight, the sails flapped loosely in the wind, then in a 
moment were refilled by the strong breeze and the boat 
swept in toward us. 
The appearance of a sail-boat in Chesterfield Inlet, 
and especially at this late season of the year, puzzled us 
much, and as it drew nearer we watched it intently. It 
had the appearance of being a large whale-boat, and was 
evidently well manned, but by whom we could not tell. 
Whoever they might be, perhaps they could be hired to 
take us down the coast of the Bay to Churchill, and if 
so we might be saved weeks of hard travel on a very 
exposed and dangerous coast. We sincerely hoped that 
the strange mariners, or at least their boat, might be 
available for the voyage. When they had approached 
sufficiently near we could see that there were Eskimos 
on board, and a moment later their anchor was cast out, 
and several of them, making a sort of raft out of three 
kyacks they had in tow, paddled in to the rocky shore 
where we stood. In vain did we look for the face of a 
white man. They were all natives, and as we gazed at 
each other in mutual amazement, I broke the silence 
with the question, “AKudloonah petehungetoo?” (Is 
there no white man?) “ Petehwngetoo” (There is none), 
was the reply, so the whole party, which consisted of 
several families, men, women and children, were Eski- 
mos, and with them in their boat they had their dogs 
and other necessary hunting and camping equipments. 
They informed us they were moving up into the interior 
from the coast to spend the winter, and so it was not 
surprising that nothing we could offer would induce 
them to consider the question of taking us down to 
Churchill or of selling their boat to us. We offered 
