30th.--We started at half-past nine the previous night, with clear
weather and a fresh breeze from west, which, with a temperature of -8°,
made our already frost-bitten faces smart severely. After a few miles'
walk, we rounded a low spit of land, which had been hid from our view by
the rough ice on our outward journey, and which I now named Point
Anderson. Between this point and Cape Barclay, of which we now got
sight, there is a narrow bay running up to the northward two or three
miles.
We had a great quantity of rough ice to scramble over, which, however
fatiguing, afforded some amusement, as the ridiculous positions in which
we were sometimes placed gave abundant food for mirth to those who were
disposed to look at every thing in the most favourable light.
About midnight the weather became very stormy, so much so indeed that we
had great difficulty in keeping the proper course, which was now to the
north west, for the purpose of picking up the pemmican, &c. which we had
deposited on the shore of Keith Bay on the 12th. On reaching the west
side of the bay at 3 A.M. I found that we were not more than a hundred
yards from where our "cache" was placed, which we found quite safe.
Ivitchuk and the boy having lagged behind, we removed a quantity of
snow, and took possession of our old snow hut to wait for them. After
staying for an hour we resumed our journey, thinking that our companions
might have taken a shorter route across the bay; and this we found to be
the case. It had been cold and stormy during the greater part of the
night; but at 8 h. 30 m. A.M., when we encamped opposite Cape Beaufort,
the weather had become beautiful.
The whole of the coast which we had traced during the last seven days,
as far as Cape Barclay, was low and flat, with neither rock nor hill to
interrupt the sameness of the landscape. It was named Simpson's
Peninsula after Sir George Simpson, the able and enterprising Governor
of the Hudson's Bay Company's territories, who projected and planned the
expedition, and to whose zeal in the cause of discovery Arctic
travellers have been so often and so much indebted.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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