The Great Frozen Sea: A Personal Narrative of the Voyage of the "Alert"Markham, Albert Hastings, Sir
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The Great Frozen Sea: A Personal Narrative of the Voyage of the "Alert"
Markham, Albert Hastings, Sir
Alert (Sloop : 1856-1895); Arctic regions; Nares, George S. (George Strong), 1831-1915
Hitherto the traces of these interesting tribes have been continuous
along the western side of Smith Sound, and tend, in my opinion, to prove
conclusively that the Eskimos were in former days far more numerous than
they are at the present time. What has become of them? The solution of
this important ethnological question would be of the greatest interest.
Have they gradually died out? or have they migrated farther south, and
are now represented by the "Arctic Highlanders," and by tribes settled
on both sides of Lancaster Sound who are frequently visited by our
whalers?
It is certain that at some remote time there was a movement of Eskimo
tribes from Asia towards Greenland in these high latitudes, for traces
of their encampments have been found along the shores of the Parry group
from Melville Island to Lancaster Sound, where they are still living in
Dundas Harbour and in Admiralty Inlet. The late Admiral Sherard Osborn
and my cousin, Mr. Clements Markham, paid great attention to this
subject during the Arctic Expedition of 1850-51, and prepared a
descriptive list of all the Eskimo vestiges along the whole length of
the Parry group.[1] We now traced similar remains up the western side
of the channels leading north from Smith Sound, at Cape Sabine, on the
shores of Buchanan Strait, on Norman Lockyer Island, on Capes Hilgard,
Louis Napoleon, Hayes, and Fraser, at Radmore Harbour, and Bellot
Island. The most northern point where human remains were discovered was
at Cape Beechey, in 81° 54´ N. Here our naturalist found the framework
of a large wooden sledge, a stone lamp, and a snow scraper made of
walrus tusk. Beyond this point there was no sign of any human being
having preceded us. This is the utmost northern known limit of Eskimo
wandering, and here they appear to have crossed the strait, and to have
made their way southward on the Greenland side. The most northern
permanent human habitation in the world is now at Etah, near Port
Foulke, and, under present climatic conditions, it would be impossible
even for the Etah Eskimo to exist at Cape Beechey, in 81° 54´ N.,
whither their ancestors must have wandered in remote times. There is
much yet to learn respecting these marvellous wanderings along the
Arctic shores; and our expedition has certainly thrown considerable new
light on the question. We have fixed the most northern limit of the
Eskimo migrations, and have established the fact that they did not come
from the north down Smith Sound, but merely wandered round its shores
until the palæocrystic floes in Robeson Channel made them despair of
finding there the means of supporting life. We have also proved that the
people seen by Captain Clavering on the east coast of Greenland in 1823
could not have come round its northern extreme, but that they had found
their way to the neighbourhood of the Pendulum Islands from Cape
Farewell. They are useful contributions towards the final solution of a
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