While our party was in
Hudson Bay a whaler was wrecked on the western coast of Southampton,
north of cape Kendall, and the crew easily secured a reindeer the day
they landed. They remained there but two days and then sought the other
shore of Rowe's Welcome, so as to be in the course of the other whalers
then in the bay in order that they might be picked up by them. They
said, however, that if compelled to remain on the island they had no
doubt of their ability to secure plenty of game to maintain them, or at
least to keep off scurvy. Last year the captain of the wrecked vessel
visited the island of the scene of the wreck in order to save as much
as possible from destruction. He went in a whale boat with a crew of
Iwillik Esquimaux, and while there met with a party of the natives. I
subsequently had a talk with the captain's Iwillik crew and inquired
about the people of Sedluk. They told me that their language was
"old-fashioned" and that their arms and implements were mostly of the
obsolete pattern of the Stone Age.
Though living so near together there had been no communication between
the nations; and only once before, about three years previous to my
visit to Hudson Bay, when a whale had gone ashore on Sedluk, an Iwillik
native on board the vessel that killed the whale went with the crew to
claim the carcases and brought news of the foreign country and its
people.
Pages:
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311