Captain Hall and Eskimos
In February, 1867, Hall visited Igloolik, the winter quarters of Parry in 1822. He improved the next year by following up the west side of Melville Peninsula, completing and surveying the short gap between Rae’s farthest, 1846, and Parry’s farthest in Fury Strait, 1825. The winter of 1868-1869 was spent at Fort Hope, where he at last succeeded in securing Eskimo aid for the final attempt to reach King William Land. He started in March, 1869, in company with ten Eskimos and dog sledges.
Crossing Rae Peninsula to Committee Bay and via Boothia Isthmus, the party reached James Ross Strait, distant some sixty miles from King William Land. Here he had difficulty in persuading the natives to continue, but at Simpson Island the success of a musk-ox hunt restored their good humour, and they consented to proceed. On the 12th of May, 1869, Hall reached the mainland; his stay was necessarily very brief, as his native companions could not be persuaded to linger in such a desolate country.
RELICS OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN
Upon his return to Repulse Bay, Captain Hall, in a letter to Mr. Henry Grinnell, dated June 20, 1869, writes in part:—
“The result of my sledge journey to King William’s Land may be summed up thus: None of Sir John Franklin’s companions ever reached or died on Montreal Island. It was late in July, 1848, that Crozier and his party of about forty or forty-five passed down the west coast of King William’s Land in the vicinity of Cape Herschel. The party was dragging two sledges on the sea-ice, which was nearly in its last stage of dissolution; one a large sledge laden with an awning-covered boat, and the other a small one laden with provisions and camp material. Just before Crozier and party arrived at Cape Herschel, they were met by four families of natives, and both parties went into camp near each other. Two Eskimo men, who were of the native party, gave me much sad, but deeply interesting, information. Some of it stirred my heart with sadness, intermingled with rage, for it was a confession that they, with their companions, did secretly and hastily abandon Crozier and his party to suffer and die for need of fresh provisions, when in truth it was in the power of the natives to save every man alive. The next trace of Crozier and his party is to be found in the skeleton which M’Clintock discovered a little below, to the southward and eastward of Cape Herschel. This was never found by the natives. The next trace is a camping place on the sea-shore of King William’s Land, about three miles eastward of Pfeffer River, where two men died and received Christian (?) burial. At this place fish-bones were found by the natives, which showed them that Crozier and his party had caught while there a species of fish excellent for food, with which the sea there abounds. The next trace of this party occurs about five or six miles eastward, on a long point of King William’s Land, where one man died and was buried. Then about south-southeast two and a half miles further, the next trace occurs on Todd’s Islet, where the remains of five men lie. The next certain trace of this party is on the west side of the islet, west of Point Richardson, on some low land that is an island or part of the mainland, as the tide may be. Here the awning-covered boat and the remains of about thirty or thirty-five of Crozier’s party were found by the native Poo-yet-ta, of whom Sir John Ross has given a description in the account of his voyage in the Victory in 1829-’34. In the spring of 1849, a large tent was found by the natives whom I saw, the floor of which was completely covered with the remains of white men.
“Close by were two graves. This tent was a little way inland from the head of Terror Bay. In the spring of 1861, when the snow was nearly all gone, an Eskimo party, conducted by a native well known throughout the northern regions, found two boats, with many skeletons in and about them. One of these boats had been previously found by M’Clintock; the other was found lying from a quarter to a half mile distant, and must have been completely entombed in snow at the time M’Clintock’s parties were there, or they most assuredly would have seen it. In and about this boat, beside the skeletons alluded to, were found many relics, most of them similar in character to those M’Clintock has enumerated as having been found in the boat he discovered. I tried hard to accomplish far more than I did, but not one of the company would on any account whatever consent to remain with me in that country and make a summer search over that island, which, from information I had gained from the natives, I had reason to suppose would be rewarded by the discovery of the whole of the manuscript records that had been accumulated in that great expedition, and had been deposited in a vault, a little way inland or eastward of Cape Victory. Knowing as I now do the character of the Eskimos in that part of the country in which King William’s Land is situated, I cannot wonder at nor blame the Repulse Bay natives for their refusal to remain there as I desired. It is quite probable that, had we remained there as I wished, no one of us would ever have got out of the country alive. How could we expect, if we got into straitened circumstances, that we would receive better treatment from the Eskimos of that country than the 105 souls who were under the command of the heroic Crozier some time after landing on King William’s Land? Could I and my party with reasonable safety have remained to make a summer search on King William’s Land, it is not only probable that we should have recovered the logs and journals of Sir John Franklin’s Expedition, but have gathered up and entombed the remains of nearly 100 of his companions; for they lie about the places where the three boats have even been found and at the large camping-place at the head of Terror Bay and the three other places that I have already mentioned. In the cove, west side of Point Richardson, however, nature herself has opened her bosom and given sepulture to the bones of the immortal heroes who died there. Wherever the Eskimos have found the graves of Franklin’s companions, they have dug them open and robbed the dead, leaving them exposed to the ravages of wild beasts. On Todd’s Island, the remains of five men were not buried; but, after the savages had robbed them of every article that could be turned to account for their use, their dogs were allowed to finish the disgusting work. The native who conducted my native party in its search over King William’s Land is the same individual who gave Dr. Rae the first information about white men having died to the westward of where he (Dr. Rae) then was (Pelly Bay) in the spring of 1854. His name is In-nook-poo-zhe-jook, and he is a native of Neitchille, a very great traveller and very intelligent. He is, in fact, a walking history of the fate of Sir John Franklin’s Expedition. This native I met when within one day’s sledge journey of King William’s Land—off Point Dryden; and after stopping a few days among his people, he accompanied me to the places I visited on and about King William’s Land.