Daily Log - August 30, 1998

Sorry to call you so late (it was 12:25 pm my time), but there's only one phone here and it has been tied up all evening. We're back in Taloyoak, and we're doing just fine. (W: As he said this, John Harrington was coughing a great deal, and seemed to have considerable discomfort talking.)

When did I talk to you last? Wednesday? We've had several full days. We've come across a lot of human remains, it seems that this is a sort of burial area. The 'pouch dated 1847' ...ahhh...something got lost in the transmission over the radio waves. It's not a leather pouch, it's a wooden board! I haven't seen it yet; we'll see it tomorrow. I think it says something like, "Store in a cool place" and it has the letters "...NCE" at the start, like the end of the word France, or the name of a ship, or something and the date is 1857. This could mean it was from a search group. Still pretty interesting. Might even be part of the supplies brought by Charles Hall, who was up on the Boothia in the 1860s. The case would predate his being here. It would be interesting if anyone could come up with the names of any ships that were in the area that had the last letters "NCE". We will see the board tomorrow - Sam brought it back with him.

Ron has come up with a puzzle for our readers, like a slogan for this trip, a riddle:

"One minute you're swimming, and the next minute you're rope."
We'll see if anyone can figure it out - we'll tell them the answer next time! We'll see what kind of guesses we get on it!


...and then you're rope
"ONE MINUTE YOU'RE SWIMMING, AND THE NEXT MINUTE YOU'RE ROPE"

The first correct guess to our riddle came from Jeff Snyder, Connecticut, who wrote:

"Is it 'seal'?...rope can be made from seal sinews, I believe."

We watched Daniel and Isaac skillfully skin a freshly caught Bearded Seal. The lower portion of the body was removed in a cone shape that was approximately 18 inches wide. This was then cut in a continuous spiral resulting in "rope" that was 1/2 inch wide by over 50 feet long!


The camp where we were located was at 69 degrees, 45.58 minutes North by 95 degrees, 47.22 minutes West, and we were 28 miles below Ross' cairn.

Doug and Abel went out Wednesday night and set the nets for char. They brought in one unbelievable char - 33" long, it had to be 20 pounds. Just beautiful! Needless to say, we've had some excellent char meals.

On Thursday we did a lot of searching. There are a lot of inlets and points around here. With the name of the area being Haviktalik ("Source of Metal"), we wanted to check it out thoroughly. We found lots of interesting things: cairns, a campers' cabin, lots of human remains, some graves...a lot of interesting stuff, but nothing that we could say was Franklin-related.

Sam and three young boys joined us on Friday. We had a total of 27 people in camp Friday night! All male, I might add. We had a great time, sharing stories and whatnot. My cough has been hampering my sleep, so I try to get to bed early...but it was impossible that night. There were kids running around, someone brought a dog, it was just a wild time. A good time. They are just such wonderful people out here. The basic philosophy seems to be, "If I have something that you need, then,... you take it." Somebody shot a seal in town, and somebody else needed the meat for dogfood, so he took it. And there's no problem with that, that's the way it is. So, I told Ron I need a Mercedes...he doesn't buy it...I don't think we can adopt that philosophy back home.
Doug with telescope
DOUG WITH TELESCOPE

We really searched the area, taking advantage of the fact that we've had such beautiful weather. Yesterday it turned to fog, pea soup fog, so we thought we would head out today. It was quite a rough ride - took us almost six hours to get back. Whereas, the other day when we came in for fuel it was two hours. It was rough seas, and you don't want to take chances out there. That's killing water.

John MacDonald got a lot of tent rings recorded. He's just in his glory with the tent rings. That will be a major part of his report.

lunch break
DOUG, RON, JOHN M. AND JOHN H. STOP FOR LUNCH.
DOUG IS EATING SUNDRIED (NOT COOKED)
CARIBOU RIBS.
We've all enjoyed the trip. We found Ross' cairn, we searched 5 miles north, and 6-7 miles south of it, a mile inland. We did a thorough search. If Franklin's men were there they certainly didn't leave any trace of themselves. It was a worthwhile trip. Just to live off the land was an amazing experience. That gave us another perspective on what Franklin's men had to do to survive.

We have video footage of our camp where you can see fishhead stew cooking on the stove, seal intestines cleaning out in another pot, caribou in various stages of disassembly in another pile, seal... (he could not continue - due to prolonged coughing). I'm not sure I can speak much more... Tomorrow we hope to get some char to bring back with us.

Eureka tent We all agree it was a great trip. We didn't find Franklin - but we know where he wasn't! That's one more piece of the puzzle I guess. (laughter and coughing) I feel better than I sound, honestly.

It's too bad we couldn't call in reports for the last few days - I imagine all you got from Daniel was a weather report and word that we were fine. When we get back we'll have to go back to those days and fill in those missing reports. I have my notes, and we'll have lots of pictures.

We hope to get out tomorrow, out of Taloyoak. Hope to head home. We're going to try to change our tickets. We will likely be two days heading back. I'll call you from wherever we are tomorrow night and let you know how we managed. I'll let you know our flight number, and times and so on. Talk to you then.


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