In those five years only three of the sixty-four men with Collinson died. According to one historian, Collinson exceeded all his contemporaries in looking after the health and morale of his men. One of his innovations was a billiard table made of snow blocks, erected on the sea ice at Cambridge Bay to dispel winter ennui. The bumpers were made of walrus skin, packed with oakum; the table surface was a sheet of freshwater ice, finely shaved; and the balls were hand-carved of lignum vitae. “I do not suppose that any of the men had played at billiards before,” wrote Collinson, “so they could not
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