CH. Ill] 
Tribes Around the Pole 
21 
said, there is a tradition that they wandered away from 
Cape Jakan to the land in sight in the distance, which 
we now know to be Wrangell Island, and thence across the 
ice to the American continent. Finding the coast already 
occupied they went northwards and eastwards seeking 
for a home. They must have come in very small parties 
and at long intervals, for the desolate country could not 
sustain a large migration. Wandering along the coasts 
of Banks Island, they came to a region which, owing to 
the absence of open water during long intervals, was 
unable to support them. 
This is one of the most wonderful migrations ever 
performed. It is unrecorded. But the long route is 
strewn with abundant vestiges of marches, during centuries 
perhaps, over the snow and ice, in search of an abiding- 
place. Many must have perished. We found relics at 
frequent intervals from Melville Island to Baffin's Bay. 
Their appearance and the lichens growing upon them, 
justify the conclusion that the movement took place 
centuries ago 1 . The relics consist of stone iglus or winter 
huts, circles of stones to keep down summer tents, stone 
fox-traps, stone lamps, graves built with stone slabs, 
and many articles brought from a distance. Among 
these were portions of the bones of whales used to support 
the roof of an iglu, other pieces cut into a shape for running 
melted snow into a vessel, pieces of the bone runners of 
sledges, and a willow switch 2 feet 3 inches long, covered 
with lichens 2 . These vestiges are numerous and con- 
tinuous from Melville Island to Wellington Channel. 
Then the traces form two branches ; one along the coast 
of North Devon to Cape Warrender and the north water 
of Baffin's Bay, the other up Wellington Channel and the 
western coast of Ellesmere Island, then across the land 
to Sir Thomas Smith's Channel. The most northern 
traces are near the 82nd parallel, where the framework 
of a wooden sledge, a stone lamp, and a snow scraper of 
1 It takes a very long time for lichens to form. The bones of the 
ptarmigan which Sir Edward Barry and his party had eaten on Melville 
Island in 1820 were clean and free from any growth when found 30 years 
afterwards. 
2 I paid very special attention to the vestiges of these wanderers 
when I served in those regions. All the articles mentioned were found 
by myself in 1851. 
