Rae did not spare himself, for starting in bitterly cold weather he laid down an advance depot which was hauled on Hudson Bay sledges a distance of one hundred and seventy miles. At Cape Pelly stores were cached under large stones, secure, as he said, from any animal except man or bear. Long experience had made him familiar with the enormous strength and destructive powers of the polar bear. Dr. Kane, it will be recalled, tells of the utter ruin of one of his best-built cairns, which he thought to be animal-proof. Yet the bears tore it down and scattered its heaviest packages in all directions.
The long and final trip to the north began on the last day of March, the four sledgemen hauling each a heavily laden sledge. The field ration was almost entirely pemmican, two pounds per day, with a few biscuit and the indispensable tea. The trip began with misfortunes, one man proving so weak in the traces that Rae had to replace him by the Cree Indian, Mistegan, an experienced sledge-hauler of unusual activity.
The route lay overland almost directly north, to Pelly Bay across a broken, desolate country. Violent blizzards and knee-deep snow made travel painful enough, but under Rae's exacting leadership the hardships became extreme. Each sledge with its load approached two hundred pounds, an awful drag, which could be made only by men of iron frame and great endurance, especially when making some twenty miles per day—Rae's standard of travel. The day's march ended, then came the tedious labor of building a snow igloo, wherein at least they were able to sleep with warmth and comfort. While hut-building was in progress the doctor faithfully made sextant observations for latitude or longitude, determined the local variation of the compass, and observed the temperature—in short, did more than any other man of the party.
Day after day they marched on over a land of desolation and abandonment. Neither bird nor man nor beast was to be seen, despite the keen eyes of the Cree hunter, of whom Rae commendingly remarked: "Custom had caused him to notice indications and marks which would have escaped the observation of a person less acute and experienced." In this single particular, of picking up and following a trail, was the remarkable Scottish leader surpassed by any of his Indian hunters or Canadian trappers.
Nearly three weeks of monotonous, heart-breaking travel had thus passed, and they reached the shores of Pelly Bay. Scouring the country near the camp as usual, the trail-hunting Cree, Mistegan, threw up his hands with the welcome message of things seen, which brought Rae to his side. There, clear to the Indian but almost illegible to any other, a few faint scratches on the surface of the ice told that days before there had passed a dog-drawn sledge.
Making camp, Rae began work on his observations, at the same time setting two men at gathering saxifrage for fuel, and putting on the sledge trail Eskimo Ouglibuck and fleet-footed Mistegan. That night Rae was happy to see flying across the bay ice several dog-sledges with triumphant Mistegan in the lead.
There were seventeen Inuit hunters, twelve men and five women. Although several of them had met Rae at Repulse Bay in 1846-7, the greater number were pushing and troublesome, having a certain contempt for men of pale faces who were so poor that they were without even a single dog and had to haul their sledges themselves. After some talk they were ready to sell the seal meat with which their sledges were loaded, but would not, despite liberal promises of needles, agree to hire out their dogs to go westward across land, as Rae desired them to do in order that he might survey the west coast—his sole object on this journey. Although Rae spoke of the delights of chasing musk-oxen, they preferred their seal-hunting grounds which they had just visited with success.
Rae tells us of a favorite method of seal-hunting followed by these Eskimos in which many of the native women are very expert. On bright days the seals, crawling from their air-holes, delight to bask in the sun and indulge in little cat-naps or siestas. Dozing a half-minute, the seal awakes with alarm, and after quickly looking in all directions falls asleep, with constant repetitions of naps and starts. When a seal is thus engaged the hunter, clad in seal-skin garments, endeavors to make his way between the seal and the air-hole, a process demanding endless patience and involving much fatigue. The hunter lies either on his face or side, and makes his advances while the animal dozes or is looking elsewhere. If obliged to move while the seal is awake, the native makes his advances by a series of awkward motions like those of a seal making its way over the ice. A skilful hunter sometimes gets within a few feet of the animal without arousing its fears, and an on-looker would at a distance be unable to say which figure was the seal and which the man. Seals are unusually curious, and at times one comes forward with friendly air to meet its supposed fellow. When in the desired position the hunter springs up and, running to the air-hole, attacks the animal as he tries to escape. Seals are thus captured even without a spear or other weapon, a blow on the nose from a club killing them.
The active and numerous body of Eskimo visitors were too meddlesome for Scotch patience, and Rae finally sent them away, not, however, before they had stolen, as it was later learned, a few pounds of biscuit and a large lump of fuel-grease.