N THE SOFT ]
| Arctic

group of Canadians
lemniy
headland
mander read t
formally

Can

raised the flag
the const
west Moun
stiffly at -salv
seemed abs

nadian
French Cz

should

third |
tic
was

above

the

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morn

the

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*S
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The only two ships to navigate the Northwest Passage — the RCMP vy
dor, Arctic patrol ship — are shown tied up alongside each other “at E

in

pare

th

-
ermost and

t

n

granite

anada was

t,

392

essel St. Roch, v

The story of what H. W. Herridge
in the House of Commons called
our forgotten Arctic expedition

Purpose of the
ernment, was to

Hudson

Bay

shores, of
for the
the admini
i the enforce
other

> and

c carried «a

dition

> »gist of con-
erable repute with previous
ctie experience ,.— in 1897
ttached to the Hudson
I expedition led by Com-
mander Wakeham.

ry 2 *

- Was ¢

His staff included Dr. L. FE.

natural-

Halkett,

ist, C. F. King, topographer
and meteorologist, and G. F.
Caldwell, photographer.

t also had at-
d “as a nucleus of
the force that in future would

at eastern Arctic posts,

reached by the Neptune carry-
ee, an expedition

Albert P. Low.

expedition,
as defined by the Laurier gov-
“patrol the
and
the eastern
S; also to aid in
establishment, on the ad-
permanent
collection of
tration of
ent of
parts of the

f. Prof. Low

Major J. D. Moodie, acting
commissioner for the unorgan-
ized Northeastern Territories,
sergeant and four con-
stables of the Northwest
Mounted Police.

a staff

The young Canadian nation
was establishing its claim to
the. Arctic territories it had
inherited from three centuries
of British and French ex-
ploration.

The Low expedition was the
first of several to be sent into
the Arctic in succeeding years;
notably those undertaken by

Captain J. E. Bernier in the
Arctic, a French Canadian
who deserves greater recog-

nition from his countrymen.
A veteran of nine Arctic ex-
peditions, during which he
took possession of Lincoln
Land, Somerset and Prince of
Wales islands for Canada, Ber-
nier once complained that Sir
Wilfred Laurier “promised to
send me to the Pole, I thought
I was going when the Arctic
vas first fitted out, but when
I opened my sealed orders
after we put to sea I foynd
I was instructed to go to Hud-

v
son Bay.”

The Neptune, stoutest vessel

By HAL GRIFFIN

of the Newfoundland sealing
fleet, left Halifax on August
23, 1903 and by September 4
she was in Cumberland Sound
on Baffin Island, centre of the

declining whaling industry.
There Major Moody, as _ his
first step in bringing “the

administration of justice and
the enforcement-of law” to the
eastern Arctic had to explain
the government’s decisions to
the missionaries and whalers
who had been virtually a law
to themselves,

Low, in his report to the
government, published in 1906
under the title The Cruise of
the Neptune, noted:

Land stations are oper-
ated at Kerkerten and Black-
lead in Cumberland Sound and
at Cape Haven, all on the east
side of Davis Strait. At the
mouth of Ponds Inlet in Baffin
Bay a small ketch is stationed;
in Repulse Bay a similar vessel

Is uSed as a whaling. station.
With the exception of Cape
Haven, these are owned in

Scotland, the Cape Haven sta-
tion belonging to a firm in
3oston, U.S.

“Only one or two white men
are employed at each, and the

eteran of 13 winters in the Arctic, and HMCS Labra-
squimalt in October 1954.

July 20, 1956 —PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PA!

whaling is altogether
hands of the natives...

“The natives have for:
looked for assistance
whalers both in Baffin 4
and Hudson Bay. They
quite given up the use 0
primitive weapons, and |
is no doubt that a with@
of the whalers would I
great hardship and
deaths among these pe?
the government did :
some manner take theif
and-supply the Eskim
the necessary guns and @
nition,

“The influence of the ©
ers upon the natives de
appear to have been as ¥
in the western part of t
hes, >? ‘

Then he added: “The
of the whaling indust
pears to be very gloom
annual catch is-decreash
ularly...”

From Cumberland Sov?
Neptune sailed through
son Straits and on Sep
23 it reached Fullerton
on the west shore of
Bay where it found thé
only American whaler
ating in the bay, alré
winter quarters,

As Low reported to the
ernment, the Neptune
ed alongside the Era
was therefore “personally
ter acquainted with ey
and methods of the An
than with those*of the P©
Whalérs.” His remarks
1ot flattering. ;

The Era, he wrote, W'
50 years old and very @
In the forecastle wheré