IDNO

P.86408.PAT

Description

Entrance to Dexterity Fiord with a small Inuit village just visible on the north shore of the mile wide strait. The fiord is surrounded by 2000-3000 feet snow covered mountains.

Place

N America; Arctic; Canada; Nunavut; Baffin Island; Dexterity Fjord [North West Territories]

Cultural Affliation

Named Person

Photographer

None

Collector / Expedition

Paterson, Thomas Thompson

Date

30 August 1937

Collection Name

Paterson Collection

Source

Paterson, Erik T.

Format

Print Black & White

Primary Documentation

Other Information

Related Image: Same image mounted in James Wordie’s 1937 album with the number and caption:
“Dexterity Fjord [Anchor Sign] August 30.”
“732, 733 & 734. Views near the mouth, including Gandolph head.”
See Related Documents File. [Jocelyne Dudding 6/3/2008]

Bibliographical Reference: J. M. Wordie; H. Carmichael; E. G. Dymond; T. C. Lethbridge, ‘An Expedition to North West Greenland and the Canadian Arctic in 1937’ in The Geographical Journal, Vol. 92, No. 5. (Nov., 1938), pp. 385-418.
Text on pp.404 - 405 includes:
“Further, we were certainly not at Dexterity Harbour; the surroundings disagreed with the description given by Adams, who had emphasized the bar across the harbour mouth, and the mountain shapes could not be reconciled with those given in a photograph which we had found in Peary’s ‘Northward over the Great Ice.’ This was our first check to an easy unravelling of the coastline, but the problem on this particular day was solved when in the afternoon we sailed south down the west side of a second island and turned left into a strait leading to the open sea with a protecting bar. We dropped anchor off a wreckage-strewn beach, further proof that we were at Dexterity Harbour, the wreckage being that of the Eagle, driven on shore in a gale in 1893. The harbour itself is really a strait about a miles in breadth, and whaling ships were accustomed to anchor either on the east or west side according to the wind, but preferably on the east side, where an Eskimo village grew up during the 'nineties. The captain and Robin took soundings across the bar and mapped the outer coastline by motor boat. On the west they reached Robin Point, which rises steeply inland, whereas the cape marking the east entrance to the harbour is low and widely rounded, being the seaward scarp of an outwash slope some 3-4 miles in depth, at the back of which the mountains rise to heights of about 2000 feet. ... We spent August 30 in this fjord, and named it Dexterity Fjord, as this was apparently the whalers' name, when they came, as they frequently did, for caribou hunts. In its outer part the side walls consist of magnificent cliffs 2000 feet high, on which joint faces, scaling off like the successive coats of an onion, are prominent. Gandolf Head was conspicuous in this respect. A sharp right-hand turn is followed by an equally sharp turn to the left, but beyond the zigzag the scenery changes from a confined fjord to a region of wide open valleys rising to gentler mountains, resembling country round the Sound of Mull; we named a bay on the left Duart Bay on this account. No caribou were seen, but it appeared a very likely grazing ground. Thereafter the fjord sides closed again and remained steep as far as the head, where we anchored, 40 miles in from Dexterity Harbour. The fjord head is marked by conspicuous terraces. Next day we retraced our steps and navigated throughout the day counter-clockwise round a large irregular-shaped island, which I propose to call after Captain Adams, and then feeling our way through the stranded bergs on the bar at the south end we doubled back to anchor over-night at Duart Bay. ” [JD 2/7/2007]

P.86084.PAT to P.86583.PAT were found wrapped in the card now numbered C446/1/.

This catalogue record has been updated with the support of the Getty Grant Program Two. [Jocelyne Dudding 7/2/2007]