Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 4, 2025
Lieutenant Schwatka and I were then left alone to provide for ourselves until Toolooah's return, which was on the 1st of September. We kept half of the double tent, and one of the dogs to help us when we moved camp, and to carry our meat. Reindeer were plentiful, and we killed eight, which kept us well supplied with food. We could have killed many more had it been necessary.
Several days before Toolooah's return we were anxiously looking for him, as he was to bring in shoes and stockings, and the time was rapidly passing in which we could complete our search. We had already finished what was required toward the west, and as far east as was feasible from this camp.
When we started for Franklin Point the next day, Lieutenant Schwatka concluded to follow Toolooah's advice, and keep upon the smooth ice near the shore, even though it should increase the distance marched. Our experience of the hummocks of Victoria Strait was not one that we were anxious to repeat.
We had therefore made up our minds to move slowly eastward on the 1st of September, if he did not get back on the last day of August. A fierce gale, with snow, kept us in camp on that day; but the returning party, consisting of Toolooah's family with Equeesik, Mitcolelee and Frank, came in notwithstanding the storm, so great was their anxiety concerning our safety and comfort.
The sun was setting when we halted about ten miles from Camp Daly and built two igloos, one of which was occupied by Toolooah's family and the four white men, the other by the remainder of the party. After the first night, however, there were always three igloos, Joe and Ishmark, his father-in-law, building a separate one for themselves and their families.
Lieutenant Schwatka decided that he and I would take Toolooah's sled, with Joe to assist, and go by the way of Smith and Grant Points, and through the big inlet spoken of by the natives as putting in from Wilmot Bay, and meet the other sleds which, in charge of Henry, would go by the way of Richardson Point and Back's River, meeting at the bend of the river above the Dangerous Rapids, where we would find the Ooqueesiksillik natives and take on board a supply of fish to last us until we reached the reindeer country once more.
Joe said that he had sak-ki-yon to that effect that is, during one of his inspirations exhorted them to that end. There is no doubt but they would be very glad to kill us all, and get our guns and knives, but they were thoroughly afraid to undertake it. After Toolooah's return he and Joe gathered in the meat we had cached in the vicinity, preparatory to starting on the 1st of the next month.
At our second visit Toolooah's wife found in a pile of stones, where had formerly stood the cairn seen by Lieutenant Hobson, a piece of paper which had weathered the storms of more than twenty Arctic winters.
The fact that another walrus had been killed was a relief to him, but did not dissipate his grief for the lost line, which was the last we had. Now for the first time Toolooah's face brightened up, and he was so impatient to hear the circumstances of the recovery of the lost game that, late as it was, he went to Joe's igloo to inquire.
We had the misfortune to lose one of our best dogs, Toekelegeto, Toolooah's leader, on the night of the 13th, who choked to death with a piece of bone in his throat. He had eaten a piece of the shoulder-blade of the reindeer, which is thin and breaks into fine splinters.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking