Schwatka's Search: Sledging in the Arctic in Quest of the Franklin Records. William H. Gilder
nearly sundown, when we arrived at a tupic under a cliff and between two large lakes. Two young married women and an old palsied crone came out to meet us. "Alex Taylor" told me that I was to stay there all night. The next morning, after walking about nine or ten miles without seeing anything in the way of game except some deer tracks, we ascended a high bluff that had been on our right since leaving camp, when, to my infinite delight, I saw a large river, which "Alex," tracing the course with his finger, indicated as emptying into a large bay near our camp, opposite Depot Island. Its course was nearly straight for about three miles below and seven miles north of where we stood; then, as my guide indicated with a wave of his hand, flowed to the east and again to the south. It extended much farther to the west and north, and from what I have since learned from the natives, rises between the head of the Invich and Wager rivers, and is about ninety-five miles in length. To the south and west of where we stood it passed over a broad stony portage, and beyond that swelled out, as do most of the rivers in this country, into a series of broad lakes filled with islands.
This discovery appeared to me of inestimable value, as indicating an entirely new and feasible route to King William Land, and, since my return to camp, Esquimau Joe, who had been away with the hunters for about three weeks, was here for a few hours, and told me that his hunting-camp was on the east bank of this same river, and the inquiry he has already made of the Inuits in his party confirmed my judgment of the feasibility of this route. I named the river after Mr. Thomas B. Connery, of New York.
We resumed our walk, turning back along the bank of the river, which on the east side is high and almost perpendicular. We reached the portage, about three miles to the south, and crossed over to the west side, which is a low, rolling country, covered with moss, which at a distance looked like sun-burned grass. The portage was nearly a quarter of a mile wide, but by the exercise of some agility, where the current ran most swiftly through the large rocks, we got over without wetting our feet, and about a mile from the river bank stopped to rest on a rocky eminence. "Alex" pointed vaguely in the direction of some hills about two or three miles away, and said he thought there were some deer over there; but as I had been walking three days now without seeing a deer, and was desperately tired, I told him to go on if he wanted to, and take my rifle, and I would wait till he came back. He trotted along, and I sat under the lee of a rock, taking advantage of the opportunity to write up my journal and trace the course of the river. In the meantime the sun sank lower and lower, but no signs of "Alex Taylor." About three hours after he left me he reappeared, with his hat in his hand and a heavy bundle over his shoulder, trotting along so nimbly that I envied him. He had shot two deer, a "cooney" and an "isaacer"—that is, a doe and a buck—and he had their warm, bloody skins on his back. He said that there were plenty of deer over there, and to-morrow we would move the camp up to that spot. So we put the skins and some tenderloin in a cairn, and covered it up with heavy stones, and after eating some of the raw tenderloin we started for home. It was long after dark when we reached there, and I was glad to find Sam's tupic already up, with his old father and young mother, and my blankets and a little package of salt, which I had missed very much while eating so much raw meat.
The next day we broke camp at an early hour, and moved bag, and baggage, to the place where "Alex Taylor" had shot the deer the preceding afternoon. Notwithstanding my sore feet and tired limbs, I took a load on my shoulders out of sheer shame, for without that I would have been the only one, old or young, biped or quadruped, without something, so I made a martyr of myself. Just after leaving the spot where "Alex" and I had cached the skins yesterday afternoon, "Sam" dropped his burden from his shoulders, grasped his rifle, and, with the single word "tuk-too," started over the country on a run. Three others joined him, and the rest of us kept on until we reached the lake, where our new camp was to be located. The tents were soon put up, and the boys started off to carry in the two carcasses that "Alex" had shot and buried under stones. Presently the hunters who went off with "Sam" came back, saying they had seen nothing, and later "Sam" came in with the skin of a big buck which he had shot. He is quite young, but one of the best and most indefatigable hunters in the tribe.
I went out in the morning with "Sam" and "Roxy" to find some deer. After some wanderings, in which "Sam" got separated from us, and after several unsuccessful shots at the game, "Roxy" and I returned, I being too weary and footsore to find much interest in the sport, especially as it began to rain and was bitter cold. In fact, the first new ice I have seen this summer was around the shores of the lake that morning, and I had to break it when I went down to bathe. On our way home we passed, on the top of a high, barren hill, a cairn, which "Roxy" at once said had been built by the Kinnepatoos, a tribe which formerly occupied these lands, and the boys soon threw aside the stones to find the dried-up skeleton of a deer killed many years ago. "Sam" did not get back until dark, but he brought with him the skin of an isaacer that he had killed since he left us.
That night I proposed to "Sam" to bring me down to our tent at the salt water, and though I could see that he did not relish leaving the good hunting-grounds just as he had reached them, he consented, and finally seemed delighted when I promised him an old pair of pantaloons for his trouble. "Alex Taylor" also came to the tupic and said he would accompany us, and this made the prospect more cheerful, as I knew it would be at least two days' hard travelling. During the night we were visited by a severe thunder-storm, which frightened my tent-mates because unused to it, and they lighted an ikomer to take the sharp edge off the lightning; but I slept on peacefully while "Old Molasses" held a stick so that the shadow kept the light of the lamp from my eyes. It stopped raining toward morning, but it was still chilly and damp when we started, shortly after daylight, on our long journey.
"Sam" and "Alex" again got separated from us in pursuit of deer, and I became so chilly that we gave up waiting for them to rejoin us, and moved on. At last we could see Picciulok, as the natives call Depot Island, but it was at a considerable distance, and it was getting late. The sun was then below the horizon, and we hastened along to get sight of some familiar ground; but, alas! at every hill-top Picciulok seemed as far, if not farther off, and finally we could not see it all, it was so dark. My guides knew they were lost, and wanted to lie down until morning, but I kept them up, for I could see the stars and could keep the right course; but the walking was terrible. My feet were now so sensitive that I could feel every sharp stone through the soles of my kummings, and the stony portages between the lakes and over the little indentations of the coast seemed to increase in number all the time. It was so dark that I could not see where to step, and my feet would slip down and wedge in the angle between the sharp stones, or the point of a rock would come right in the hollow of my foot, until I stumbled and floundered and almost screamed with pain. And yet no familiar landmarks. I began to despair, or rather to doubt my physical ability to proceed, when the sharp-eyed Netchuk called my attention to the light from a tupic at a considerable distance, and a little to our right. This was indeed refreshing, so we kept on as well as we could, though we often fell, and I staggering with a strained cord in one foot and the skin worn off the sole of the other. But there were the lights ahead, and we kept right straight for them, though no matter how far we walked they seemed just the same distance off. It was certainly discouraging, and I could not help thinking of the will-o'-the-wisp, and wondering if the phenomenon was ever seen in the Arctic. I could not remember any instance in my reading, and determined to reach that light or perish in the effort. At last it did seem nearer. We could make out the shapes of the tents, and finally we could hear dogs barking and snarling, and before long we were there. We found the lights in the tupics that were occupied by the old folks left behind at Camp Daly by the hunters, and found "Alex Taylor," "Sam," and the boy had just got in; so, after learning that "Alex" had killed two deer with my gun, "Sam" and Koumania and I went up to our own tent, which was dark.
[Illustration: A CAIRN.]
These were our diversions. Our business was to inquire into the truth of Captain Barry's story. Pursuing our investigation through the next three months, we learned that there had never been other than three families of Natchillis living with the Iwillik Esquimaux. One of those, the native who had died in the preceding winter, was an aged paralytic called "Monkey," whose tongue was so affected that even his own people could scarcely understand him. The second was Natchilli Joe, known to his own people as Ekeeseek, who was a child in his mother's hood at the time when he lived on King William Land, and only knew the story of the Franklin expedition from hearsay. The third, Nu-tar-ge-ark, a man of