We're a little tired tonight, but otherwise fine. It was about 10 degrees today, slightly overcast, still not much wind, still inundated with bugs. We got to within a few miles of Fitzjames Island, and had to be satisfied with that. We had to have strength to come back. We saw Fitzjames from the air when we came over, and it was nothing but a tidal mudflat anyway, so it was just as well not to get into that.

We saw lots of tent rings today, exciting stuff. John MacDonald was quite pleased with all the pictures and measuring he had to do. We saw one tent ring, or rather "tent place", Franklin era, (we could tell by the moss and lichen that had grown on it) that was quite substantial in size. It had six unique piles of stones around it, two on each side and one in the middle of each end, that looked like they were strategically placed to hold ropes to hold up a tent wall - definitely not Inuit. It is probably the most "Franklin-related" thing we have found. It was 6.5 metres long by 4.25 metres wide.

We're hiked out. In the 25 miles around the coast we have probably walked 140 miles. We have faithfully walked all the inlets, out to every point, and combed the entire coastline. We haven't shortcut anything. Our conclusion is that the Franklin Trail doesn't go around this way. If that was a Franklin camp we found, it was probably a mapping party from Gore in 1847, it could have been McClintock's search in 1859, or Schwatka's search in 1879. It would be nice to think it was one of those. We think that the retreating party from the Franklin ships must have cut through the middle of the Graham Gore Penninsula and bypassed this area. So, we've eliminated this area; it hasn't been a waste at all. We're footsore and a little tired, but feeling good about what we've accomplished.

The ice has moved out. If a plane came right now it could land, but the situation changes relatively quickly. We phoned Adlair (the airline with the float planes) and they've moved up our scheduled pickup to Monday at 3:00 pm, depending on the weather. If we get out of here a day earlier we will spend the extra time in Cambridge Bay where we've built good rapport with a lot of the local people. Derek will get another chance to catch that Arctic char, and I (Harrington) might join him. I also want to get some pictures of ancient Inukshuks there; I want to do some paintings of them.

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