HUDSON BAY.
The anchor was hoisted and the moorings to the ice cast off at two o’clock on the morning of the 18th of July, when the Neptune proceeded to break her way out of Fullerton harbour, after having been nine months there fast frozen in the ice. Little difficulty was experienced in breaking the harbour ice, when, following a pilot boat, the narrow eastern entrance was soon passed and the ship was once more free. Loose stringers of small ice extended a few miles from the shore, after which only occasional lumps were seen during the day, as the ship steamed across to Cape Kendall, and then followed the west coast of Southampton southward. The southwest point of the island was passed before midnight. This point lies well to the northward of its position on the chart, or in about 63° N. latitude.
The low southern shore of Southampton was followed during the night, and only a few stringers of ice were met with. At four o’clock in the morning the island was lost to sight, and by noon we were steaming along the equally low shores of Coats island, with the small but prominent Walrus island in sight to the northward. Ice to the northward gradually forced the ship closer to the shores of Coats, where, after passing a wide bay, partly filled with large, low islands, we coasted within two miles of a prominent headland about four hundred feet high, which forms the northeast cape of Coats, and which was named Cape Préfontaine in honour of the Honourable the Minister of Marine and Fisheries. These highlands appear to traverse the island diagonally in a southwest direction, coming out at a lower altitude on the south side of the island several miles west of Cape Pembroke. This ridge is due to a band of crystalline rocks, which rises from beneath the low flat limestones forming the remainder of the island. A large whale was seen while passing through Fisher strait.
Beyond Cape Préfontaine the ice became more plentiful, and many large pans were met with. The ice had the appearance of being lately broken up, and owing to its smooth unrafted condition we judged it came from Fisher strait, rather than from Fox channel to the northward. During the night this ice forced the ship southward into the channel between Coats and Mansfield, so that the western shore of the latter was reached some twenty-five miles to the south of its northern end.
Open leads in the ice were found from three to five miles from that island, and no difficulty was experienced in gaining its north end. This island of limestone is somewhat higher than Coats and Southampton, rising inland in low broad terraces to an elevation of upwards of a hundred feet. Small patches of snow were seen under banks and along the faces of the terraces, but elsewhere the green colour showed that considerable vegetation covered the greater part of its surface.
Midnight in Smith Sound.
Similar lanes of water, between large cakes of ice, afforded an easy passage from Mansfield to Digges islands. A great amount of ice was seen to the southward, apparently completely filling the channel between Mansfield and the mainland. To the northward some open water occurred, but the patches became smaller and smaller as Digges was approached, and finally ceased to the eastward of these islands, the southern part of the western end of Hudson strait being completely filled with ice.
A strong southerly wind had been blowing all day, and it was hoped that it had loosened the ice along the southern shore of the strait. The ship was taken under the land, but without success, so that after butting through the slowly closing ice all night, we were finally tightly beset in the early morning, about three miles from the eastern Digges island. The 21st was foggy, with snow flurries in the morning and showers in the afternoon; the ice remained tight about the ship all day, and she drifted eastward with the ice, passing Cape Wolstenholme, and in the evening being about five miles to the east of Erik cove. At that time considerable open water could be seen about five miles from the ship to the eastward, with a few narrow lanes in the rear, and other small openings to the northward, where the dark sky showed considerable open water beyond our view.