Elisha Kent Kane Private Journal

[verso]

search. This journal will give in due time my list of equipment and general organization.

My feelings may be understood when I say that my Carpenter and all the working men save Bonsall are still on their backs and that a [months?] preliminary labour is needed before I can commence the heavy labour of transporting my boats (three in number) over the ice to the anticipated water. At the moment of my writing this the water is over eighty miles in a short line progress from our brig!

[No matter, spirits good! Hope is better! Trust best of all!!]

Thursday Apr. 12

Again blowing as yesterday from [?] We have had of late much of these winds. I regard them as very favourable to the advance of open water. The long swell from the open spaces in North Baffin’s Bay [succeeded] has a powerful effect upon the ice. I should not wonder if the ice about Life Boat Cove, off McGeary Is would be broken up by the first of May. Poor Hans is out in this storm.

Our sick have been without fresh food since the 8th but such is the [?] by our late supply that they, as yet, show no backward symptoms. McGeary and [Christian Ohlsen|Ohlsen] and Brooks and Riley dress themselves daily and are able to do much useful jobbing. Thomas begins to relieve me in cooking, [George Riley|Riley]] to take a spell at the [?] Morton cooked breakfast, am aided by McGeary, [Christian Ohlsen|Ohlsen] has already finished one cotton [?] camp blanket with which I intend to cover our last remaining buffalo skins. Wilson comes on slowly. Dr. Hayes too begins to heal. Sonntag is more cheery [less a nuissance] with the [encaptions?] of Goodfellow John & Whipple I can feel that my little household is [are] fast becoming men again. [Sastrande indefinite?]

[recto]

[the following paragraph is crossed out] and vague as is the acknowledged God to whom I give it. Gratitude unspeakable pervaded one at this sudden change. I knew the cause of our resurrection from putrid stagnation to vitality. The cause was 400 [?] of raw meat, it puzzled the [?] and [?] to say why in the next causative [?], raw walrus did this. I might spend a lifetime among the proximates and never get up to God. What damned [me?] - family - for us [agglomented?[ worms, unable [?] [?] to dissect our own Maggots[?], to travel up to [origination?]. I only know that I am very grateful. [/end deletion]

The Netelik Settlement on Northumberland Island was when [Myouk?] heard from it the refuge of the natives from the farthest south even of those from beyond [Wolstenholne?] and the last beyond about their barrier glacier. As [?] drove them they concentrated at [?] Stronghold and watched Hans says with great merriment song and dance and [?] merriment the gradual approach of starvation. [Now I am [rotted?] with news up to the date of Hans leaving Etah. ]

It seemed that the poor wretched suffered terribly even more than one neighbors of Etah. Their laws exact an equal division, and the success of the best hunsters was dissapated by the crowds of feeble claimants upon their spoils. At last the broken nature of the ice margin and the freezing up of a large zone of ice prevented them from seeking walrus. The water was inacessible, and the last resource [of killing their dogs] pressed itself [fell] upon them. They killed their dogs. Fearful as it sounds when we think how indispensable the services of the animals are to their daily existance, they cannot now number more than twenty in their entire [domain] ownership of the tribe. From glacier south to glacier north, from glacier east to the [?] ice bound coast which completes the circuit of their little world. This nation have but twenty dogs. What food can they hope for without their animals.

[verso]

8

I can already count eight settlements including about one hundred and forty souls. There are more perhaps; but certainly I here state the majority of the population, out of these I can number five deaths since our arrival, and I am aware of hardships and disasters encountered by the survivors, which [?] as they must be in the [?] cannot fail to resolve a [large?] mortality. [Both] crime combines with the [contingencies of] disease and exposure [operate] to their their numbers. I know of three murders within the past two years [by [?] narration from the relatives of the murdered] and one infanticide (Awahtok child) occurred only a few months ago.

These facts which [involve only such as] are open to my limited sources of information must [?] of course a much smaller mortality than the fact. [The actual results] They confirm however a fearful conclusion which these poor wretches have themselves communicated to us, that they are dying out -: not lingeringly like the American tribes but so rapidly as to be able to mask within a generation their progress towards extinction.

Nothing can be more saddening measured by our own [?] than such a conviction, [at least as it would be to [?] a] but it seems to have no effect upon this remarkable people. Surrounded by the graves of their dead, by huts [?] yet still recent in their memory as homesteads, even by caches of meat which, frozen under the snow by the dead of one year, are eaten by the living of the next; they show neither apprehension nor regret. Even [Kalutaneh?] a man of fine instincts and I think of heart, will retain his stolid face of apathy of [blank] by the aid of [?] extinction. He will smile in his efforts to count the years which must obliterate his nation, and break in with a laugh as his children shout out their ["Amna Ayia"?] and dance to the taps of his drum.

[recto]

9

How wonderful is all this! rude as are their ideas of numbers, there are those among this merry hearted peoples who can [thus] measure look forward to the fate of their last man.

[In return to my record of news] When Netelik now the receptacle of these half starved fugitives was obliged itself to capitulate with famine the body corporate determined, as on like occasions it had often done before, to migrate to the seats of the more Northern hunt. The movements of the walrus and the condition of the ice seem to be known to them by a kind of instinct: so when the light came, they harnessed in their reserve of dogs and started for Cape Alexander.

It could not one would suppose have been a very cheerful migration, women, babies, and young children trusting themselves into a frozen wilderness at constant temperatures before -30° and sometimes verging upon -60°. But Hans with a laugh which seemed to indicate some exquisite point [?] concealed appreciation of the [ludicrous?] said they travelled gradually in squads, singing Amna Ayia and when they reached any of the [halting huts?] eat the blubber and liver of the owners and danced all night! So, at last, they reached [Utaksoak?] "The great Cauldron" well known as Cape Alexander, and settled at a spot called Peteravek or the wellcome halt. [Whither I have seat to negotiate as before, mentioned].

At first game was scarce there; but the season was [closer?] at hand when the female walrus is tending her calf; and except the exposure of long jaunts upon the ice, there was then no drawback to the success of the chase. They are desperately merry and seem to have forgotten that a second winter in ahead of them. Hans said, with another of his quiet laughs, one half of them are sick, and cant hunt these do nothing but eat and sing "Amna Aiya."

(Description of Etah & incidentally Introduce Esquimaux Habits in dissertation)

Friday Apr. 13

Our sick which still means "all hands" except the cook which again means the Captain [entered?] this morning on their 8th day of fasting for some days past from flesh. One or two have been softening about the [?] comes, and all feeling weak with one scanty deck. The evening comes, when ["bein", bein, bein"?]! Sounds upon the deck and Hans is back [?] with his dogs. Rabbit stew and walrus [?]! [?]

[this paragraph looks to be crossed out] For the past four days we have lived on rice, bread, and meat biscuit, no fatty matter either of Pork or Beef has crossed our [?] own lips. Here after a most gaseous day we are all supping together on a fine rabbit stew with raw liver by way of oysters. [/end deletion]

This life of ours, for [so] we have been living much in this way for the past nine months, makes me more charitable to our Esquimeaux [brothers] neighbors. The [day?] provides for itself or if it does not, we trust in the morrow, and are happy [?]

[rest of paragraph struck through?]

Our cabin, if such this smoke dried hole can be called, is a scene worth looking at. No man with his heart in the right place could do other than enjoy it. Hans has brought with him [Metek?] and [Miteks?] sisters son a fine boy fourteen years of age. [?] intends this visit as a conciliatory compliment to the Nalegaksoak having last fall before our present sworn alliance [staten?] the [?] whale of the red boat and being now in [mortal?] uncertainty as to his political &

12

I determined to go to Etah, for the double purpose of advancing my negociation for dogs and of possible Mr. [B?] capturing William Godfrey. The desertion of this man would have I feared a bad effect upon his companions, if allowed to remain unmolested so near the ship.

Before I describe my journey [?] was in fact a long walrus [?] and full of adventure I will finish the Episode of Godfrey. Under the circumstance I had to [?]. The sledge had privately placed within its [cage?] a pair of foot cuffs. And I wore a [?] leaded Colt Dex [?] concealed back of my jumper, so as to escape the knowledge of [Netek?] His nephew I detained on board the brig to be carried back in a couple of days by stand and I so disguised myself by pulling [now?] my esquimaux jumper hood ([nessak?]) that I could at a little distance be easily mistaken for the [Pautek?] boy [?] place I had taken.

Imagine a long journey about 80 miles [?] Two burrowing dirt [?] holes are seen perforating a steep bank of snow and [Mitek?], raiding a land [?], whips his dogs and sings out "Etah!". I crouch behind him pistol in hand and peer under his arm [?] at the dark objects which crawl out like [?] from a [hive hole?] to wellcome the return. Among the first is long Bill waving his hands and yelling "[Tima?]!" as loudly as the [?] savage of them all. Almost in an [?] I leap from the sledge and have my six shooter at his ear.

The man between surprise and fear was completely broken he yielded unconditionally. Returning homeward I kept him in advance of the sledge [?] him at Anoratok. He is now aboard the brigt of [?] utterly [?] by a [mangled?] walk and run of nearly 80 miles. The foot cuffs were entirely superfluous.

[verso]

14

are the escalated [?] of the more northern [Condt?]. At the very bottom of [Leper?] Bay are seen two perforations one a cliff fortressed Fiord, and the other a smiling ravine, both are occupied by an [?] of the same glacier, and both are landmarks for Esquimaux settlements. The fiord points to [Poternevik?], where now [Kalutanak?] and his hungry southern Corps have taken up their [greatest?] the other is the open [?] of Settlement of Etah.

A snow drift riding at an [?] of 4[?] until it mingles with the steep sides of a mountain is dotted by two dark blemishes uponts its pure white. Coming nearer you see that the [?] spots are perforations entering like the burrow of a wild beast into the bowels of the snow. Nearer still you see that above each spot is a second but smaller, and that a covered roof extends over each. These are the doors and windows of the settlement. Two tents and four families comprise the entire [?] and except for these vent holes are entirely bureed in the snow.

[sketch] When I arrived and had finished off Mr. Bill, the [?] of the burrow swarmed around me. Nahlegak! Nahlegak! [Tima?]! was yelled in chorus. Never seemed people more anxious to propitiate or pleased with an unexpected visit, but they soon [?] back again for they were airily clad and it blew a N. wester. Soon preparations inside were [?] and Mitek himself preceded me in crawling on hands and knees though an extraordinary [?] thirty paces long.

[recto]

As I emerged from this the salute of Nahlegak! was repeated, but from a number of [?] most dispiriting to a red nosed man [sovereign] who after 80 miles of ferocious exposure was about to lodge his royal [?] in their midst. A party of [?] six in number and [?] of the neighbouring settlement had been overtaken by the storm. Among these in the central place of honour, on the [blank] or dais, I soon found myself gasping the [amoniacal?] steam of an atmosphere of 90 degrees, and sharing with fourteen [?] fellow creatures a [?] gave 15 feet long by six. All were naked Legs perched in mid air, legs tined round throats; trunks on which [?] the sleeping head rose, curiously from [?]. Such a [?] voluntarily impacted mass of humanity one rarely sees. Men, women, children, [beastlings?], with nothing but their native [?] to cover them, were wedged into one wonderful exhaling [solid?] more closely than negroes on the middle passage. No hyperbole can [?] that which in serious earnest I now give as truth. This platform [measured?] but seven feet in breadth by six in depth, the shape being semi eliptical. Upon this including children and myself were slowed [?] sleepers.

The [Kolbak?] of each matron soon [?] with a flame sixteen in [?] long a [?] quarter of walrus, which laid frozen upon the floor of the [nelek?] was cut into stacks and soon the [?] smoked with a burden of ten or fifteen pounds. Mitek with a [?] amateur aid from a few of the sheperd [suplied?] this without my assistance. I saw enough of the culinary regime, to [?] it impossible for one to join in the repaste. Bill brought me a hand fulls of frozen [?], and soon