[7] M'Clure abandoned the Investigator shortly after Pim's sledge journey, and crossing the ice with his men joined Belcher's squadron. M'Clure and his crew thus made the northwest passage and received therefor the reward of ten thousand pounds sterling. Captain J. E. Bernier, who wintered at Melville Island in the Canadian steamer Arctic, 1908-9, says of the Investigator: "M'Clure anchored his vessel ... to be cast on a shoal, where, he said, she would last for ages. He was mistaken, as no sign was visible of the vessel when the officer of the Arctic visited Mercy Bay in 1908."
[9] In order to raise the puppies and save them from the devouring jaws of the ravenous, starving dogs, litters are kept in the huts, or elsewhere in a protected place, until they are large enough to run about and seek their mother's aid when attacked.
[11] Comparative measurements showed that the centre of Brother John Glacier moved one hundred feet annually. Rink states that the centre of the great Jacobshavn Glacier moves twenty metres a day, or about four and a half miles annually.
[12] "Memoirs of Hans Hendrik" was written by Hans in Eskimo twenty-eight years after Sonntag's death. This little-known volume, translated by Dr. Henry Rink, gives, among other interesting matter about the expeditions of Kane, Hayes, Hall, and Nares, the account of Sonntag's death, which is substantially the same as that recorded in Hayes's "Open Polar Sea."
[13] Hans Hendrik was of West Greenland where all the natives are baptized. His wife, Mertuk, was one of the so-called heathen natives of the Cape York region. See "The Wifely Heroism of Mertuk, the Daughter of Shung-Hu."
[15] Of this situation Hans Hendrik, in his "Memoirs," written in Eskimo, says: "But especially I pitied my poor little wife and her children in the terrible snow-storm. I began thinking: 'Have I searched for this myself by travelling to the north? But no! we have a merciful Providence to watch over us.' At length our children fell asleep, while we covered them with ox-hides in the frightful snow-drift."
[16] In my own expedition we shod our dogs for travel in very cold weather with neatly fitting, thin, oil-tanned seal-skin shoes. Though a shoe was occasionally lost, as they had to be tied on loosely, the feet of the dogs were well protected.