The whole of the natives, with the exception of a few old people who were remaining at the fishing station, and three young men and their wives, went the following day to an island four miles off for the purpose of killing more seals, and also to put new covers on their canoe frames.
25th.—This was the anniversary of our arrival here last year; and certainly everything wore a very different aspect from what it then did. Last summer at this date there was no ice to be seen in Repulse Bay; the snow had nearly all disappeared, and the various streams had shrunk to their lowest level. Now there was not a pool of water in the bay, except where the entrance of a river or creek had worn away or broken up the ice for a short distance. There was much snow on the ground in many places, and most of the streams were still deep and rapid.
The musquitoes were rather troublesome; but this I was not sorry for, as the Esquimaux said that the ice in the bay would soon break up after these tormentors made their appearance.
As our native friends were now getting sufficient fish to maintain them, they required no further assistance from us at present. Their mode of catching salmon is a very simple one. They build a barrier of stones about 1½ or 2 feet high across a creek, some distance below high-water mark. The salmon, which keep close to the shore at this season, are by this means, during the ebb of the tide, cut off from the sea, and are easily speared. About sixty were thus killed this day. The spear used is usually made of two diverging pieces of musk-ox horn, from 4 to 5 inches apart at the extremities; between these there is a prong of bone about 3 or 4 inches shorter than the outer ones. Each of the longer prongs is furnished with a barb on its inner side, made of a bent nail or piece of bone, which prevents the fish from escaping. The handle is 6 or 8 feet long. The head of the instrument much resembles a three-pronged fork, with the middle prong a little shorter than the others.
The moon was full this day. High-water at 45 minutes past noon. Arkshuk, Shimakuk, and Kei-ik-too-oo visited us on the 28th, bringing a few pairs of boots for sale. The tins which contained preserved meat, and table knives and forks, were in great demand among these good folks. One of the ladies to whom I gave a fork, used it as neatly in eating fish as if she had been accustomed to it from childhood. Thermometer as high as +60° in the shade.
The ice in the bay had broken up for more than a mile from the shore opposite the mouth of the river, but some distance out it looked as white and firm as ever.
I had for some time observed that large stones, some of them of one or two tons weight, were making their appearance on the ice; and I was much puzzled to make out how they came there. They could not have fallen from the shore, as the beach was sloping at the place, nor had they been carried in by drift ice of the previous season. The only way that I could account for it was this. At the commencement of winter the ice layer acquiring considerable thickness, had become frozen to the stones lying on the bottom, and raised them up when the tide came in. The stones would get gradually enclosed in the ice as it grew thicker by repeated freezings, whilst by the process of evaporation, which goes on very rapidly in the spring, the upper surface was continually wasting away, so that in June and July there was little of the first formed ice remaining, and thus the stones which at first were on the under surface of the ice appeared on the top. This may perhaps in some measure account for boulders, sand, shells, &c. being sometimes found where geologists fancy they ought not to be. Ice has been time out of mind the great "conveyancer."
August 1st.—We were visited this day by an Esquimaux named I-ik-tu-ang, whom I had not before seen. He had passed the winter near the Ooglit Islands, a few days' journey from Igloolik. He said that, when a boy, he was frequently on board the Fury and Hecla in 1822-23, and that the "Kabloonans" killed a number of walruses, and some black whales, with two small boats; that the walruses were put in "cache" for them (the Esquimaux), who were rather short of provisions at the time, and that they received the skins of the whales. They had abundance of provisions last winter, but were visited by a very fatal disease—from what I learnt of the symptoms, resembling influenza—which carried off twenty-one grown-up persons. The children were not attacked with this complaint. Two of the party at Igloolik had been reduced to the necessity of putting to death and eating two children, to save themselves from starvation.
Four men, whilst hunting the sea-horse with their canoes lashed together, were assaulted by this fierce animal, struck down with his formidable tusks, their canoes capsized and broken, and the whole party drowned. Another poor fellow having early in the winter harpooned a walrus through a hole in the ice, was dragged into the water before he could disengage himself from the line. The ice being still thin and transparent, the body was found a few days after.
I-ik-tu-ang also informed me—as I had already supposed from various appearances—that there is open water throughout the winter between this and the Frozen Strait, through which a strong current runs with the flow and ebb of the tide,—so strong is it that when bears are pursued and take the water, they are often swept under the ice and drowned.