At the Post, as was stated, there is a rise and fall of tide of forty feet. In Ungava Bay and the straits it has a record of sixty-two feet rise at flood, with the spring or high tides, and this makes navigation precarious where hidden reefs and rocks are everywhere; and there are long stretches of coast with no friendly bay or harbor or lee shore where one can run for cover when unheralded gales and sudden squalls catch one in the open. The Atlantic coast of Labrador is dangerous indeed, but there Nature has providentially distributed innumerable safe harbor retreats, and the tide is insignificant compared with that of Ungava Bay. “Nature exhausted her supply of harbors,” some one has said, “before she rounded Cape Chidley, or she forgot Ungava entirely; and she just bunched the tide in here, too.”
That Tuesday night sloping rocks and ominous reefs made it impossible for us to effect a landing, and in a shallow place we dropped anchor. Fortunately there was no wind, for we were in an exposed position, and had there been we should have come to grief. A bit of hardtack with nothing to drink sufficed for supper, and after eating we curled up as best we could in the bottom of the boat. No watch was kept. Every one lay down. Easton and I rolled in our blankets, huddled close to each other, pulled the tent over us and were soon dreaming of sunnier lands where flowers bloom and the ice trust gets its prices.
Our awakening was rude. Some time in the night I dreamed that my neck was broken and that I lay in a pool of icy water powerless to move. When I finally roused myself I found the boat tilted at an angle of forty-five degrees and my head at the lower incline. All the water in the boat had drained to that side and my shoulders and neck were immersed. The tide was out and we were stranded on the rocks. It was bright moonlight. Kumuk and Iksialook got up and with the kettle disappeared over the rocks. The rising tide was almost on us when they returned with a kettle full of hot tea. Then as soon as the water was high enough to float the boat we were off by moonlight, fastening now and again on reefs, and several times narrowly escaped disaster.
It was very cold. Easton and I were still clad in the bush-ravaged clothing that we had worn during the summer, and it was far too light to keep out the bitter Arctic winds that were now blowing, and at night our only protection was our light summer camping blankets. When we reached the Post at George River not a thing in the way of clothing or blankets was in stock and the new stores were not unpacked when we left, so we were not able to re-outfit there.
Wednesday night we succeeded in finding shelter, but all day Thursday were held prisoners by a northerly gale. On Friday we made a new start, but early in the afternoon were driven to shelter on an island, where with some difficulty we effected a landing at low tide, and carried our goods a half mile inland over the slippery rocks above the reach of rising water. The Eskimos remained with the boat and worked it in foot by foot with the tide while Easton and I pitched the tent and hunted up and down on the rocks for bits of driftwood until we had collected sufficient to last us with economy for a day or two.
That night the real winter came. The light ice that we had encountered heretofore and the snow which attained a considerable depth in the recent storms were only the harbingers of the true winter that comes in this northland with a single blast of the bitter wind from the ice fields of the Arctic. It comes in a night—almost in an hour—as it did to us now. Every pool of water on the island was congealed into a solid mass. A gale of terrific fury nearly carried our tent away, and only the big bowlders to which it was anchored saved it. Once we had to shift it farther back upon the rock fields, out of reach of an exceptionally high tide. For three days the wind raged, and in those three days the great blocks of northern pack ice were swept down upon us, and we knew that the Explorer could serve us no longer. There was no alternative now but to cross the barrens to Whale River on foot. With deep snow and no snowshoes it was not a pleasant prospect.
Our hard-tack was gone, and I baked into cakes all of our little stock of flour and corn meal. This, with a small piece of pork, six pounds of pemmican, tea and a bit of tobacco was all that we had left in the way of provisions. The Eskimos had eaten everything that they had brought, and it now devolved upon us to feed them also from our meager store, which at the start only provided for Easton and me for ten days, as that had been considered more than ample time for the journey. I limited the rations at each meal to a half of one of my cakes for each man. Potokomik agreed with me that this was a wise and necessary restriction and protected me in it. Kumuk thought differently, and he was seen to filch once or twice, but a close watch was kept upon him.
With infinite labor we hauled the Explorer above the high-tide level, out of reach of the ice that would soon pile in a massive barricade of huge blocks upon the shore, that she might be safe until recovered the following spring. Then we packed in the boat’s prow our tent and all paraphernalia that was not absolutely necessary for the sustenance of life, made each man a pack of his blankets, food and necessaries, and began our perilous foot march toward Whale River. I clung to all the records of the expedition, my camera, photographic films and things of that sort, though Potokomik advised their abandonment.
At low tide, when the rocks were left nearly uncovered, we forded from the island to the mainland. It was dark when we reached it, and for three hours after dark, bending under our packs, walking in Indian file, we pushed on in silence through the knee-deep snow upon which the moon, half hidden by flying clouds, cast a weird ghostlike light. Finally the Eskimos stopped in a gully by a little patch of spruce brush four or five feet high, and while Iksialook foraged for handfuls of brush that was dry enough to burn, Potokomik and Kumuk cut snow blocks, which they built into a circular wall about three feet high, as a wind-break in which to sleep, and Easton and I broke some green brush to throw upon the snow in this circular wind-break for a bed. While we did this Iksialook filled the kettle with bits of ice and melted it over his brush fire and made tea. There was only brush enough to melt ice for one cup of tea each, which with our bit of cake made our supper. . We huddled close and slept pretty well that night on the snow with nothing but flying frost between us and heaven.
We were having our breakfast the next morning a white arctic fox came within ten yards of our fire to look us over as though wondering what kind of animals we were. Easton and I were unarmed, but the Eskimos each carried a 45-90 Winchester rifle. Potokomik reached for his and shot the fox, and in a few minutes its disjointed carcass was in our pan with a bit of pork, and we made a substantial breakfast on the half-cooked flesh.