Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 1.djvu/326

Rh the same natives—that is, of the same Innuit race—all those particulars so interesting, and many of them so important to science, concerning the Lost Polar Expedition? I was now convinced, more than I had ever been, that the whole mystery of their fate could have been, and may yet be easily determined with even the smallest well-directed aid. At all events, I felt that, while life and health should be spared me, I would devote myself to this undertaking. Such was the current of my thoughts at the time I was in the old lady's tupic and listening to her words; and, let me add, such are now my thoughts, and, so far as may be permitted, such are my intentions. In continuation of my interview with the aged Innuit, I asked her why Innuits, as I had been informed, do not now live upon the land beyond Bear Sound, extending eastward between the waters of Frobisher Bay and Field Bay? To this, as interpreted, she said— "A great many years ago, before I (Ookijoxy Ninoo) was born, the Innuits all around these bays were very many. The number of Innuits on Ki-ki-tuk-ju-a (Lok's Land of Frobisher) and the other islands in that direction was great; but at one time they were nearly all out on the ice, when it separated from the land and took them out to sea. They never came back, nor did any Innuit ever hear of them again. Since then, Innuits never live there, nor ever visit the place." As she spoke about this catastrophe she did so under evident feelings of constraint and horror; and when I asked if she had ever visited it, her emphatic reply was, "Never! !" This accounted to me for much apparent mystery which I had noticed respecting the region in question whenever I addressed any Innuit upon the subject. They could not—or would not—give me any information about it; and when I once tried to get a company of natives to go there with me, all refused. Yet every year they make frequent passages, backward and forward through the channel Is-se-hi-suk-ju-a (called by Frobisher Bear Sound), dividing the "ill-fated land" from the main.