[Sidenote: PLANS FOR THE FUTURE.] I will not now detain the reader with the full details of my plans for the future, arranged to meet this new exigency; suffice it here to observe that, after taking Jensen and Kalutunah into my counsels, I was fully convinced that, by bringing out two ships,--mooring one of them in Port Foulke, and pushing north with the other,--a practicable scheme of exploration could be inaugurated, and that its success as well as safety would be secured. To this end, I proposed to myself to establish a permanent hunting station or colony at Port Foulke; to collect about that place all of the Esquimaux;[12] organize a vigorous hunt; and make that hunt yield whatever was essential for sustaining indefinitely an extended system of exploration toward the North Pole. In the practicability of establishing such a station, Jensen, whose experience in the Greenland colonies was extensive, fully agreed with me, and he was much delighted with the plan, accepting without hesitation my proposal to make him superintendent of it; Kalutunah was overjoyed with the prospect of bringing all of his people together; and, in this aspect alone, the scheme possessed much that was to me personally gratifying. My intercourse with this fast-dwindling race had caused me to feel a deep interest in them and to sympathize with their unhappy condition. The hardships of their life were telling upon them sadly, and, if not rescued by the hand of Christian philanthropy and benevolence, in less than half a century these poor wanderers of the icy sea will have all passed away. [Footnote 12: The Esquimaux may, to a limited extent, be even made available in exploration, as has been shown by the experience of Mr. C. F. Hall, who is now, with no other reliance than the natives, energetically pushing his discoveries westward from Repulse Bay.] My plans for the future did not, however, assume definite shape at the period of which I write, nor could they until the schooner should be set free. CHAPTER XXXV. THE ARCTIC SPRING.--SNOW DISAPPEARING.--PLANTS SHOW SIGNS OF LIFE.--RETURN OF THE BIRDS.--CHANGE IN THE SEA.--REFITTING THE SCHOONER.--THE ESQUIMAUX.--VISIT TO KALUTUNAH.--KALUTUNAH'S ACCOUNT OF THE ESQUIMAU TRADITIONS.--HUNTING-GROUNDS CONTRACTED BY THE ACCUMULATION OF ICE.--HARDSHIPS OF THEIR LIFE.--THEIR SUBSISTENCE.--THE RACE DWINDLING AWAY.--VISIT TO THE GLACIER.--RE-SURVEY OF THE GLACIER.--KALUTUNAH CATCHING BIRDS.--A SNOW-STORM AND A GALE.--THE MID-DAY OF THE ARCTIC SUMMER. Having determined to be guided by circumstances, as set forth in the last chapter, I had now only to await the breaking up of the ice and the liberation of the schooner,--an incident which I could not anticipate wholly without anxiety, owing to our exposure to the southwest rendering the disruption liable to come in the midst of a heavy swell from the sea that would set us adrift in a rolling pack.