Mr. Peary has decided to start on a trip up Inglefield Gulf to-morrow. His purpose is to verify some of the observations made by us on our April sledge trip, to take photographs of the landscape in its summer dress, and to secure ethnological specimens at Karnah and Nunatochsoah that were promised us by the natives of those places. We expect to return within a week, and then everything will be put on board the good ship “Kite,” and we shall bid adieu to our Arctic home and the dear old huskies, who, even if they are not particularly clean, have been our faithful friends, and will, I am sure, never forget us.
IN MUSK-OX LAND BEYOND THE ICE-CAP.
CHAPTER XVIII
BOAT JOURNEY INTO INGLEFIELD GULF
The Sculptured Cliffs of Karnah—Luxuriant Vegetation—Stormy Weather—Anniversary Camp—My Kahlillowah—Crossing the Gulf in a Tempest—The Shelter of Academy Bay—Fury of the Arctic Winds—An Iceberg Breakwater—We reach Karnah again—Rounding Cape Cleveland—Fighting for Life and Shelter—Safe at Redcliffe.
The weather was not very encouraging as we started from Redcliffe House on Tuesday, August 9, the strong wind of the two previous days having brought up heavy storm-clouds, which now hid the sun and hung threateningly overhead. It was just about noon when we left the beach at Redcliffe, the light “Mary Peary” shooting rapidly along with the strokes of the six Eskimo boatmen, and in a short time we had rounded Cape Cleveland and started eastward up the gulf. The scene before us was very different from what it had been ten months previously, when we made our first attempt. There were then numerous pans and streams of ice, with the new ice rapidly cementing them together; the land itself was covered with snow, and the ice-foot had already commenced to form on the beach. Now there was only an occasional fragment of ice, though the great bergs were numerous. The mountains of the shore were rich with the warm hues of summer. Late in the afternoon a favoring wind came up from the west, and with foresail hoisted we moved merrily along before it. Relieved thus from their labors, our crew lounged contentedly upon the seats, and fell into a conversational mood. Mr. Peary learned from them that many years ago Mekhtoshay had shot an “amarok,” or wolf, at Netchiolumy, and that Panikpah had killed one at Nerki; Koomenahpik and Mekhtoshay, who are brothers, also related that years ago they had both seen “oomingmuk” (musk-oxen), “awahne, awahne, Etah” (far beyond Etah).
At half-past six in the evening we reached Karnah, a small Eskimo settlement on the north shore of the sound, some twenty miles from Cape Cleveland. Here the low, flat shore ends, and a line of towering gray cliffs begins. We pitched our tent on a level bit of grass among the stones, and after our evening meal was completed we crossed the noisy glacial stream flowing near the village, climbed the hill just west of it, and then followed the shore westward till we came to the stone igloos of Karnah the deserted. Four houses form this village, which lies in the center of a beautiful grassy meadow, stretching back from the shore to the foot of the brown mountains. The luxuriance of the grass here was wonderful. All across the meadow we waded through it, literally knee-deep, and in one or two places immediately about the igloos it was so rank that as I stooped to gather some sprays for pressing I was almost hidden. Returning to our tent, we were soon lulled to sleep by the boisterous music of the glacial stream. During the night it snowed lightly, and when we awoke the ground was covered with a white mantle, which, however, soon disappeared.
Leaving Karnah on the morning of the 10th, for three or four hours we threaded our way through bergs and great cakes of blue ice, past the giant cliffs of Karnah, with their great bastions, towers, chimneys, and statues, carved by the Arctic storms from the gray sandstone, the breeding places of black guillemots, burgomaster gulls, and white falcons. As we passed along our Eskimo boatmen pointed out to us the striking figures, all of heroic size, looming against the sky far up the cliffs, and told us that such and such a one was a woman, and such another a man, and that the cliffs themselves were known as “innuchen” (statue rocks). There would be wide scope here for the imaginative genius who has given the nomenclature to the rocks in the Garden of the Gods. All this time it was raining in fierce showers, and we rounded the point of the bay east of Karnah in the face of one of them. A number of deer were seen quietly grazing in the valleys. A fresh wind came up from the south, and we went dashing up the bay, with the foam flying from the bow of the boat, and a boiling white wake behind us. We landed on a sandy beach near the head of the bay. While the tent was being pitched and the boat hauled out of the water a school of white whales (“kahkoktah”) came puffing and sporting into the cove, and Koomenahpik immediately went out in his kayak, which we had in tow, after them. He remained out for an hour, but as the result of cautiousness, either on his part or on the part of the whales, he did not succeed in getting near enough to use his harpoon, and returned unsuccessful. The view from our camp was very impressive. Facing us, and forming nearly a semicircle, was a great glacier; just across the cove a great nunatak reared its brown mass above the ice, and everywhere the cliffs were of a warm red and brown coloring, a marked contrast to the wintry shores of Herbert and Northumberland islands, and to the chilly, gray sandstone cliffs of Karnah. Our tent was pitched just above high-water mark beside a little stream whose banks were actually yellow with Arctic poppies.
Pillar of Sandstone.