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As the crossing of the ice in Baffin’s Bay had of itself unexpectedly occupied nearly the whole of one season, it could not, of course, be considered that the attempt to penetrate to the westward in the manner directed by their lordships had as yet been made, nor could it, indeed, be made during the present year.
In that case, Prince Regent’s Inlet will undoubtedly become a rendezvous for our ships, as well on account of the numerous fish there, as the facility with which any ship, having once crossed the ice in Baffin’s Bay, is sure to reach it during the months of July and August.
Being again favoured with a fair wind, we now stretched to the eastward, still in an open sea; and our curiosity was particularly excited to see the present situation of the ice in the middle of Baffin’s Bay, and to compare it with that in 1824.
Besides the ootkooseeks, they have circular and oval vessels of whalebone of various sizes, which, as well as their ivory knives made out of a walrus’s tusk, are precisely similar to those described on the western coast of Baffin’s Bay in 1820.
For as the annual clearing of the northern parts of Baffin’s Bay depends entirely on the time of the disruption of the ice, and the rate at which it is afterwards drifted to the southward by the excess of northerly winds, any circumstance tending to retain it in the bays and inlets to a later period than usual, and subsequently to hold it together in large floes, which drive more slowly than smaller masses, would undoubtedly produce the effect in question.
Passage to the Whale-fish Islands, and Removal of Stores from the Transport—Enter the Ice in Baffin’s Bay—Difficulties of Penetrating to the Westward—Quit the Ice in Baffin’s Bay—Remarks on the Obstructions encountered by the Ships, and on the Severity of the Season.
We saw nine or ten black whales the evening of our arrival in Neill’s Harbour; these, like most observed hereabouts, and I believe on the western coast of Baffin’s Bay generally, were somewhat below the middle size. Finding the wind at north-west in Prince Regent’s Inlet, we were barely able to lie along the eastern coast.
The same chronicle gives an account of a voyage northward, up Baffin’s Bay, and through what is now called Wellington Channel.
It is more than probable that the natives of the inlet called the river Clyde, on the western coast of Baffin’s Bay, are a part of the people thus designated; and, indeed, the whole of the numerous bays and inlets on that extensive and productive line of coast may be the residence of great numbers of Esquimaux, of whom these people possess no accurate information.
I have no doubt that this more than usual quantity of icebergs in Sir James Lancaster’s Sound was to be attributed to the extraordinary prevalence and strength of the easterly winds during this summer, which would drive them from the eastern parts of Baffin’s Bay. They now occurred in the proportion of at least four for one that we had ever before observed here.
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