During the eight years I spent in the Arctic, I have experimented with a variety of clothing, but in neither winter nor summer have I found any more suitable than that worn by the present-day Eskimos in districts where caribou are still plentiful. From 1938 to 1941 we prepared all our own skins, and my wife made all the skin clothing excepting the seal-skin boots. The descriptions are primarily intended to give practical information on clothing to travellers in Arctic regions. For this reason we have made no attempt to discuss women's clothing. My wife adopted men's clothing because of its superior convenience, and because it requires less material. Women's clothing is made with a view both of being different from the men's and of accommodating the baby, always carried on the back. Except as otherwise indicated, both the clothing and the methods of preparation here described are those of the Eskimos of Baffin Island, Melville Peninsula, Southampton Island, and the coastal region from Repulse Bay to Chesterfield Inlet; and where mention is made of “the Eskimos”, the reference is to those of these regions only.

When Sir Leopold McClintock returned from King William Land in 1859, he stated that none of Sir John Franklin's officers and men could still be living, and the principal Arctic authorities entirely agreed with him. Nevertheless, a dissentient voice was raised in the United States by Captain Charles Francis Hall. Convinced that survivors might still be found, he undertook two Arctic expeditions in search of them. His first expedition, to Frobisher Bay (1860–62), yielded no relevant information, and need not be described. On the other hand, his second expedition, which lasted five years (1864–69), was not in vain. He spent the first winter near Wager River, and the other four winters at Repulse Bay, and made many journeys from his winter quarters. The stories told him by Eskimos convinced him at first that his long-cherished belief was founded on fact, and he informed his friends in the United States that survivors of the Franklin expedition might still be alive. Not until he himself had visited King William Land in 1869 did he realise that he had been too sanguine.

There is a toast which, in the writer's opinion, ought to be drunk whenever the great deeds of an expedition and its leader are being honoured, and that is “To the Second in Command”. After a few such toasts someone might be moved to write a book on the famous Seconds-in-Command who grace the pages of polar narrative, and an impressive list it is. To mention but a few there are Crozier for Ross in the early part of last century, Sverdrup for Nansen in the latter part, Frank Wild for Shackleton, and the subject of this note, Armitage, for Scott on his Discovery Expedition, 1901–04.

The Polar Record, No. 19, January 1940

Page 270, line 31. For 72° 44′ S. read 74° 44′ S.