Sometimes a bottle filled with gunpowder was let down under the ice through a hole that had been drilled, and the long fuse that had been fastened to it was lighted. When the fire reached the powder it exploded; but although it cracked the ice for a little distance, very little was broken off.
“AHNG´OODLOO and a Narwhal Head with its Long White Ivory Horn”
During this time AH-NI-GHI´-TO was over on the island with Koodluk´too and Billy Bah every day, gathering eggs, which were plentiful now.
“The huge Tail of a Narwhal”
The ducks lay their eggs on the ledges of the rocks, in nests made of the down which they pluck from their breasts.
As hundreds of the birds had their nests on this island, it was not necessary to take the eggs from the same nest twice, and this left enough eggs for the birds to breed.
One day a great windstorm swept down from the north and broke off all the ice which had been cracked by the blasting and carried it out of the harbour. Only a small pan of one-year-old ice was left between the ship and the open water.
The fires were started under the boiler, and with the help of the saws and the steam, the ship soon pushed out the remaining ice, and on July 3rd, with every living creature in the settlement on board (not forgetting about seventy-five dogs), the “Windward” steamed out of the little harbour where she had been lying for ten months, and reached Littleton Island on the opposite shore that evening.