After a most devious course of nearly twelve miles, we came to the shores of the bay. The banks were of mud and shingle, about sixty or seventy feet high, and so steep that it was some time before we could find a place by which to get down to the ice. We directed our steps among much rough ice towards the highest of the group of islands named Coga-ur-ga-wiak, apparently six miles distant, and encamped near its western end in a little well-sheltered bay. All the party, even the Esquimaux, had got severely frost-bitten in the face, but as it was not much more than skin deep, this gave us little concern. When our house was nearly built, a search was commenced among the snow for heather, and we were so fortunate as to procure enough in an hour and a-half to cook us some pemmican and flour, in the form of a kind of soup or pottage.
We were all very glad to get into our blankets as soon as possible. The weather became somewhat finer in the evening, but it drifted as much as ever. The thermometer was -16°. Our latitude was 68° 53' 44" N., longitude 89° 55' 30" west. Notwithstanding that I carried my watch next to my skin the cold stopped it, and I could not tell exactly the time of our arrival at the island, but I believed it was near 2 P.M.
On the 16th, a gale of wind from N.W. with thick drift, and the thermometer at -20°, would have prevented our travelling had I intended it; but as I purposed leaving some of the men and all the dogs here to recruit, I wished to find out the Esquimaux (who we knew were in the neighbourhood, as the recent foot tracks of two had been seen on the shore the day before), and obtain from them some seals' flesh and blubber for our use. Flett, Ivitchuk, and the interpreter were sent on this mission, but they returned in the evening unsuccessful. The drift was so thick in the bay that they could not see to any distance. In the meantime Corrigal and Adamson had been collecting fuel, and I being under the lee of the island obtained observations for latitude and variation of the compass, the former being 68° 53' 44" north as above, the latter 87° 40' west.
I prepared for an early start the next morning in company with Flett and Corrigal, for the purpose, if possible, of reaching Sir John Ross's most southerly discoveries, which could not now be distant more than two days' journey.