The light-coloured limestone forms the bottom of the harbour, and gives the water a dangerous looking, light tinge, which is quite misleading, as the depth is sufficient for the largest ships. The east and west sides of the harbour are bounded by high cliffs, while at the northern end the land is low, and it is not far across it to the bay on the northern coast lying directly west of Cape Clarence.
North Somerset has physical characteristics closely resembling those of North Devon; the limestone cliffs of the northern shore, however, appear to be somewhat lower and more broken than those of the northern island, while the amount of snow and ice of the land is considerably less. The high perpendicular cliffs of the east side appear to continue far to the southward down Prince Regent inlet.
The wind increased during the night, and blew a gale all next day, strong and almost continuous gusts from the high hills sweeping the crests from the waves and rendering a landing impossible. The wind fell away towards morning. On the 17th a landing was made on the point, the flag was hoisted and a copy of the Proclamation and of the Customs Regulations was left in the boiler. Close alongside lay the wreck of the launch, destroyed by the ice, only the keel, some of the timbers and lower planking remaining. Signs of the whalers and of natives were plentiful on the point, where the circles of stones and fireplaces marked the tents of the former, and other fireplaces showed where the whalers had been ‘trying-out’ whale blubber. A curious sled-runner of teak was picked up on the beach. It was about six feet long and full of holes bored for lashing on the shoeing, which was of walrus ivory, and further secured to the runner by wooden pegs. The wood was either from the wreck of the launch, or more likely from that of the Fury, lost early in last century, some miles to the southward of Port Leopold, on the western side of Prince Regent inlet. The evidence of great age in the runner points to the latter origin.
Port Leopold was left shortly before noon, and we were soon tossing in the head sea caused by the past gale. The wind changed to eastward, and within an hour of leaving the harbour we were again inclosed in a thick fog, which rendered a return impossible. The fog lasted until the next evening. During the interval we steamed cautiously across the mouth of Prince Regent, Admiralty and Navy Board inlets, and with clearing weather found ourselves outside the Wollaston islands that lie a few miles from the northwest corner of Bylot island. A parting between the lower and upper fog gave a beautiful ribbon-like picture of the rough snow-covered coast and peaks of Bylot island flooded with bright sunshine, in marked contrast to the gloomy, foggy weather about the ship.
A wide belt of heavy field ice, which was dangerous to enter in the low fog that obscured the shores, lay along the land; consequently the impressions of the northern part of the island were obtained from a distant view between the banks of fog. The scenery was characteristic of the northern lands occupied by the crystalline rocks, the principal feature being sharp rugged peaks upwards of 1,500 feet in height, rising above the deep glaciers of the valleys and backed by a continuous ice-cap a few miles inland.
PONDS INLET.
During the night much field-ice and many icebergs were passed as we steamed along the shores. Next morning at eleven o’clock, having rounded Cape Graham Moore, we came to an Eskimo encampment just inside Button point on the north side of the entrance to Ponds inlet. A landing was made at the mouth of a small stream, on the clay banks of which were located thirteen cotton and skin tents of these natives. All the able-bodied men were away in the whaleboats, either at Erik harbour, on the south side of the inlet, or some distance up it. There were a large number of women and children who, with a few sick men, completely filled a whaleboat in which they visited the ship in search of food. Many were sick with a disease resembling typhoid-pneumonia, being troubled by internal bleeding and a high fever.
We secured the services of a very intelligent man as pilot to the place some miles up the inlet where the Scotch whalers were anchored. From him we learned that the sloop Albert had wintered in Erik harbour, and that two small whales had been captured by natives in her boats during the early summer. Continuing our way up the inlet, a second encampment of six tents was passed about six miles beyond Button point. From the pilot we learned that the total native population about Ponds inlet comprised thirty-five families, or one hundred and forty-four persons. The only other band on the northern shores of Baffin island lived at Admiralty inlet, and does not exceed forty persons in all. Members of this band annually visit Ponds inlet to trade for the necessary supplies of ammunition, knives and other articles to be obtained from the whalers. At this time over one-half of the population of Ponds inlet were away inland to the southwest after a supply of deerskins for winter clothing, and would not return before the snow fell. The deer country is free from snow during the summer, and consists partly of rolling country, with a few high hills, but principally of a plain, cut by many streams and dotted with numerous lakes, the deer feeding on the grass and shrubs which are plentiful in the interior.
Bylot island is everywhere high and rough, and supports few deer except in the northeastern interior. The ice-cap, seen everywhere from the coast, does not extend far inland, where much of the land is bare in summer. The natives of Ponds inlet frequently cross to Fox channel and Repulse bay. During the past winter a party returning from the latter place brought letters from the whaling station at Repulse bay. They also occasionally cross to North Somerset, where of late years musk-oxen have been killed. This journey is at rare intervals continued across Lancaster sound to North Devon, where many deer and musk-oxen are found along the western side, while bears and walrus are plentiful among the ice of Wellington channel. In the winter all congregate at Button point, where the early part of the season is spent in houses built half into the ground, the low walls being made of boulders and whalebones cemented together with clay and sods, the roof being a portion of the summer tent. The ordinary snowhouse is used, as in other places, after the snow falls and until the late spring. During the winter food is obtained by killing narwhals and occasional seals and walrus in the open water at the edge of the solid ice near the mouth of the inlet. The whales come in July and sport about the mouth of the inlet until the ice breaks up, when they either follow the solid edge in its retreat up the inlet, or pass southward along the coast. In former years at least half of the whales taken by the Scotch whaling fleet were captured in the vicinity of Ponds inlet.
