Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 2.djvu/206

Rh "Captain B said, further, that to take the pack at this season of the year would be the very height of foolhardiness. In the spring the whalers do not hesitate to do it, for then constant daylight and warm, thawing weather are expected. But now everything is freezing up. Long, dark nights are upon us, and the George Henry is not such a vessel as one should think of venturing with her into dangerous places. Captain B is thankful that I made the trip I have to-day. He says, 'What would have been our condition had you not seen and reported this? As soon as possible I should have been on our way; I should have weighed anchors and raised sail at the first fair wind. But in what kind of a situation should we soon have found ourselves? In the pack, without the power to retreat! ' "To-morrow morning Captain B goes out for the object of visiting some point overlooking Davis's Strait, near the entrance to Field Bay, to determine what he must do on seeing how the pack is. It is hoped that he will find the pack I saw ended; but he says he has no doubt, from what I saw, that it will be impossible to get out this season; that we must make up our minds to stop here this winter. He is already planning for the wintering of his men. He says he will have to divide them among the natives, as the ship has neither provision nor fuel sufficient to last till she is again free from ice and can reach home.

"Friday, October 18th, 1861. This morning, the first and all-important matter of our being obliged to winter here absorbs our attention. It is the general subject of conversation fore and aft. Captain B started off at 7 taking with him his principal officers, for the purpose of making a survey from Budington Mountain of the pack in Davis's Strait. At 9.15  he returned, reporting that Rescue