As we made several tacks off the island next to the northward of Igloolik, called by the Esquimaux Neerlo-Nackto, two canoes came off to us, in one of which was Toolemak.  He and his companions came on board the Fury, when I employed him for a couple of hours in drawing a chart of the strait.  Toolemak, though a sensible and intelligent man, we soon found to be no draughtsman, so that his performance in this way, if taken alone, was not a very intelligible delineation of the coast.  By dint, however, of a great deal of talking on his part, and some exercise of patience on ours, we at length obtained a copious verbal illustration of his sketch, which confirmed all our former accounts respecting the existence of a passage to the westward in this immediate neighbourhood, and the large extent of land on the northern side of the strait.  Toolemak also agreed with our other Esquimaux informants in stating, that from the coast of Akkoolee no land is visible to the westward; nor was any ever heard of in that direction by the Esquimaux.  This fact they uniformly assert with a whine of sorrow, meaning thereby to intimate that their knowledge and resources are there both at an end.

The disruption of the ice continued to proceed slowly till early on the morning of the 14th; the breeze having freshened from the northwest, another floe broke away from the fixed ice, allowing us to gain about half a mile more to the westward; such was the vexatious slowness with which we were permitted to advance towards the object of our most anxious wishes!

On the 14th I left the ship with Mr. Richards and four men, and furnished with provisions for ten days, intending, if possible, to reach the main land at a point where we could overlook the strait.  In this we succeeded after a journey of four days, arriving on the morning of the 18th at the extreme northern point of a peninsula, overlooking the narrowest part of the desired strait, which lay immediately below us in about an east and west direction, being two miles in width, apparently very deep, and with a tide or current of at least two knots, setting the loose ice through to the eastward.  Beyond us, to the west, the shores again separated to the distance of several leagues; and for more than three points of the compass, in that direction, no land could be seen to the utmost limits of a clear horizon, except one island six or seven miles distant.  Over this we could not entertain a doubt of having discovered the Polar Sea; and, loaded as it was with ice, we already felt as if we were on the point of forcing our way through it along the northern shores of America.

After despatching one of our party to the foot of the point for some of the sea-water, which was found extremely salt to the taste, we hailed the interesting event of the morning by three hearty cheers and by a small extra allowance of grog to our people, to drink a safe and speedy passage through the channel just discovered, which I ventured to name, by anticipation, THE STRAIT OF THE FURY AND HECLA.  Having built a pile of stones upon the promontory, which, from its situation with respect to the Continent of America, I called CAPE NORTHEAST, we walked back to our tent and baggage, these having, for the sake of greater expedition, been left two miles behind; and, after resting a few hours, set out at three P.M. on our return.