Fragment of a Diary Found on Ellesmere Island
by Brian McNaughton
 
March 15, 1886:
Wheeler lost the draw. He called us cheating dogs and took up the ax, but five to one is no contest, even weak as we are, and we disarmed him. Redmond is a joker; he says do not bruise him, it will spoil the meat, Wheeler says I hope you choke on me, you son of a bitch. Capt. Daniels held him and told me to cut his throat. We dressed the carcass and put most of the cuts outside, where it is snowing again, reserving the left leg and foot which we cut up and boiled. I thought I would never be able to eat this, but the smell of cooking made my mouth water, and I fell to with a will when Jackson said it was done.
This is where it got strange. It was crowded around the pot, and I took it into my head to count us. Each time I came up with six, but Wheeler was dead and there should be only five. I was used to this, for the past month I have not known if I was waking or sleeping, but I forced myself to concentrate and counted each man by pointing with my finger.
What are you doing? Wheeler asks.
Everyone stared in horror at the dead man, sitting there large as life beside me, and sharing in the feast. Capt. Daniels took up the ax and hit him, but Wheeler laughed. He did not bleed like a live man, and the blow did not distract him from eating.
 
March 20:
The bear was back and she stole the meat we had stored outside, causing us to despair. Wheeler said we must draw lots again. Look at me, he says, it is nothing to be afraid of. He is ghastly, with his split forehead and cut throat like a grinning mouth below the real one.
 
March 21:
Jackson lost the draw which was unfortunate as he is the cook. He came back and partook of the meal but he was more surly than Wheeler and cursed us for killing him.
 
March 25:
The dead men stay by themselves, knowing they are different. They do not sleep, which is worrisome. They eat however. If we kill another one, the dead will equal the living.
 
March 31:
We did not need to draw since Redmond volunteered. I will not have to worry about dying when I am like Wheeler and Jackson, he says. The dead have a laugh at this. Capt. Daniels strangled him with a rope. He came back, too.
 
April 1:
Now it is Capt. Daniels and young Hodgson and me. I would like to talk with them about our predicament, but you cannot swing a cat in the shack we cobbled from salvaged timbers, and the dead would put in their two cents. They are not like they were in life. I do not understand Redmond's jokes. We cannot go outside, for the cold is deadly, and the bear is prowling constantly.
 
 
April 10:
We woke up to find Capt. Daniels dead, strangled in his sleep. Redmond did not deny killing him and said it was the best way, he would not have to fret now about losing the draw. Capt. Daniels did not take this view himself when he came back and was very bitter, but he sits with the other dead men while Hodgson and I keep to ourselves.
Wheeler will not leave off staring at me. He says he does not hold it against me, but I was the one who put the knife to his throat.
 
April ?:
My name is Abel Hodgson and I set pen to paper in Jimmy's diary as he does not want to write no more now that he says he is dead. He says it is all right to write in it if I do not write lies. The bear tore a hole in the wall and Jimmy drove him away with the ax. It does not sit well with him when I ask him why he bothered to fight off the bear if he is dead already. I pray that some kind person will take this note to my mother, Mrs. Sarah Hodgson of Portsmouth, N.H., who knows that I do not tell lies although Jimmy sure does. I pray someone will tell Miss Amelia Manning of Portsmouth that I was thinking of her to the last and wish I had never succumbed to the lure of the sea.
Dear Jesus, Jimmy is getting restless again.