When supplies ran out, the return trek across the Barrens became one of the most tragic incidents in the history of Arctic exploration. Robert Hood was one of those who perished on this trip. Weakened by starvation, he was shot through the head by a member of the party turned cannibal.

A highly sensitive and educated man with a painter's eye for detail, Hood was an astute observer of the political and social ways of the North. The journal reveals his awareness, unusual in his time, of the adverse effects on Native peoples and their environment of the coming of the Europeans. Hood's paintings capture the beauty as well as the harshness of the North. His bird paintings in particular are of special artistic and historical interest.

Stuart Houston received his early education in Yorkton, Saskatchewan, his M.D. from the University of Manitoba, his fellowship in diagnostic radiology from the Royal College, and a D.Litt from the University of Saskatchewan. He was editor of the Journal of the Canadian Association of Radiologists, head of the Department of Medical Imaging at the University of Saskatchewan, a member of council of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, president of the Canadian Society for the History of Medicine and vice president of the American Ornithologists' Union.

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