region
will not rise to bait but are captured by cutting a hole in the ice and
dropping in a piece of ivory carved in the shape of a small fish. When
the fish rises to examine this visitor, it is secured with a spear. The
Eskimo fish spear has a central shaft with a sharp piece of steel,
usually an old nail, set in the end. On each side is a piece of deer
antler pointing downward, lashed onto the shaft with a fine line, and
sharp nails, pointing inward, are set in the two fragments of antler.
When this spear is thrust down on the fish, the antlers spread as they
strike the fish's back; he is impaled by the sharp point above him, and
the sharp barbs on either side keep him from getting away.

The char (?) of North Grant Land is a beautiful mottled fish, weighing
sometimes as much as eleven or twelve pounds. I believe that the pink
fiber of these fish--taken from water never warmer than 35 deg. or 40 deg. above
zero--is the firmest and sweetest fish fiber in the world. During my
early expeditions in this region, I would spear one of these beauties
and throw him on the ice to freeze, then pick him up and fling him down
so as to shatter the flesh under the skin, lay him on the sledge, and as
I walked away pick out morsels of the pink flesh and eat them as one
would eat strawberries.

In September of 1900 with these fish a party of six men and twenty-three
dogs were supported for some ten days, until we found musk-oxen. We
speared the fish in the way the Eskimos taught us, using the regular
native spear.

The new members of the expedition were naturally anxious to go
sight-seeing. MacMillan had an attack of the grip, but Borup and Dr.
Goodsell scoured the surrounding country. Hubbardville could not boast
its Westminster Abbey nor its Arc de Triomphe, but there were Petersen's
grave and the _Alert_ and _Roosevelt_ cairns, both in the neighborhood,
and visible from the ship.

About a mile and a half southwest from our winter quarters was the
memorial headboard of Petersen, the Danish interpreter of the English
expedition of 1875-76. He died as the result of exposure on a sledge
trip, and was buried there abreast of the _Alert's_ winter quarters. The
grave is covered with a large flat slab, and at the head is a board
covered with a copper sheet from the boiler room of the _Alert_, with
the inscription punched in it. There may be a lonelier grave somewhere
on earth, but if so I have no knowledge of it. No explorer, not even