ENPages That Mention Rensselaer Bay, Nunavut
Elisha Kent Kane Diary
Page 1
Rensselaer Harbour June 8th
Sunday June 4
Brig Advance now frozen in quarters Rensselaer Harbour June 8th
| Officers | |
|---|---|
| E. K. Kane. | Convalescent from Scurvy & Fever. |
| James McGeary | Well |
| Henry Brooks | Amputated toe - Scurvy |
| Christian Ohlsen | Well |
| Amos Bonsall | Well Scurvy in knee. |
| I. I. Hayes M.D. | Well Opthalmia |
| J. W. Wilson | Amputated toe - Scurvy |
| Henry Goodfellow | On sick list |
| Crew | |
|---|---|
| George Riley | Well |
| George Stephenson | Scurvy & Inf. of Heart |
| Thomas Hickey | Scurvy & Anemia |
| William Godfrey | On sick list |
| John Blake | On sick list |
| George Whipple | Well Anemic |
| William Morton | Well Anemic |
| Hans Hendrick | Well |
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265
McGeary, my relief, calls me. He has foraged out some raw cabbage and spiced it up with curry powder, our only remaining pepper. This, with a piece of corn bread, no bad article either, he calls me to share with him. True to my old times habitudes I hasten to the cabbage. Cold roast beef Worcester sauce, a head of endive, and a bottle, not one drop less, of [Presi?] Pans ale. (I never drink any other). McGeary "bring on de beans."!
Thurs. Jan. 18. 12 [Mid?]
Wind howling on deck, a noq. gale a warm S.Easter directly from the land. The mean temperature of this wind is -20°. Warm as this may seem our Experience has taught us to prepare -40° with a calm to -10° with a face opposing gale. Judging by what little of weather wisdom I have acquired I should if we only had daylight start as soon as the present wind subsided, believing that I would have a three days interim between a renewal of atmospheric disturbance and the coming moon. It is however too dark to encounter the squeezed ice and I must wait.
[*Describe the survey &c. all after date of return on p. 280.*] My [plan] mode of travel I said yesterday, was peculiar. I will imagine myself explaining it to the tea table. [Bessie and Sallie Butler]] my outfit and intentions.
Route Say the Route is from Brig Advance Rennsselaer Harbour to Esquimaux Huts of Leiper Bay.
1. From Brig to Ten mile Ravine 10. m.
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323
March.
p.361 4 pp of Review for March
March 1. Thurs.
A grander scene than our bay by moonlight can hardly be conceived. It is in fact more dreamlike and supernatural than any combination of earthly features. To approach it on canvass would be an impossible task. When the moon is nearly full and so opposed [encroached on] by the encroaching dawn [lingering twilight]as to mingle their double lights, the resulting tint is a peculiar leaden ash - dull and cold. Throw now such an atmosphere upon the gnarled craggy hills of our bay, let it crawl step by step up the terrace let it smear the big fiord with daubed shadows of [lead?] colour, and then go over the great sea of ice with the same miserable neutral tint - let it be - a palpable something, a coloured gas. Imagine a world bathed not in yellow chlorine or sulphuretted hydrogen, but in a saturated yet transparent fluid of ashen lead. Over such a ground work as I have often described for Rensselaer Harbour, throw such a mantle, and then place in the midst of it a bright intense moon. Let it light every crag edge or ice spire and spread out though every valley and fiord, and finally let it print upon the snow the fantastic profiles of our hilly back ground. The result will be a chaotic inconceivable landscape, utterly inorganic to the senses and to the eye without form and void. I come down from deck with the feelings of a man who has looked upon an [unfinished] world. unfinished by the hand of the Creator.
March Friday 2.
Petersen begins to be uneasy at the absence of game immediately [mis?]