Here we met some of the Eskimos that had been connected with the Eskimo village at the World’s Fair at Chicago, in 1893. Mary, Mark’s wife, was one of the number. She told me of having been exhibited as far west as Portland, Oregon, and I asked:
“Mary, aren’t you discontented here, after seeing so much of the world? Wouldn’t you like to go back?”
“No, sir,” she answered. “’Tis fine here, where I has plenty of company. ’Tis too lonesome in the States, sir.”
“But you can’t get the good things to eat here—the fruits and other things,” I insisted.
“I likes the oranges and apples fine, sir—but they has no seal meat or deer’s meat in the States.”
It was not until Tuesday, March thirteenth, three days after our arrival at Karwalla, that Mark thought himself quite able to proceed. The brief “mild” gave place to intense cold and blustery, snowy weather. We pushed on toward West Bay, on the outer coast again, by the “Backway,” an arm of Hamilton Inlet that extends almost due east from Karwalla.
At West Bay I secured fresh dogs to carry us on to Cartwright, which I hoped to reach in one day more. But the going was fearfully poor, soft snow was drifted deep in the trail over Cape Porcupine, the ice in Traymore was broken up by the gales, and this necessitated a long detour, so it was nearly dark and snowing hard when we at last reached the house of James Williams, at North River, just across Sandwich Bay from Cartwright Post. The greeting I received was so kindly that I was not altogether disappointed at having to spend the night here.
“We’ve been expectin’ you all winter, sir,” said Mrs. Williams. “When you stopped two years ago you said you’d come some other time, and we knew you would. ’Tis fine to see you again, sir.”
On the afternoon of March seventeenth we reached Cartwright Post of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and my friend Mr. Ernest Swaffield, the agent, and Mrs. Swaffield, who had been so kind to me on my former trip, gave us a cordial welcome. Here also I met Dr. Mumford, the resident physician at Dr. Grenfell’s mission hospital at Battle Harbor, who was on a trip along the coast visiting the sick.
Another four days’ delay was necessary at Cartwright before dogs could be found to carry us on, but with Swaffield’s aid I finally secured teams and we resumed our journey, stopping at night at the native cabins along the route. Much bad weather was encountered to retard us and I had difficulty now and again in securing dogs and drivers. Many of the men that I had on my previous trip, when I brought Hubbard’s body out to Battle Harbor, were absent hunting, but whenever I could find them they invariably engaged with me again to help me a stage upon the journey.