Evening Star Newspaper, November 11, 1929, Page 6

T FROST BITES PINCH HAMPERED FLYERS Stranded Canadians Made Way to Safety Despite Cold | and Food Shortage. This is the third installment of the thrilling adventures and rescue of Col. " D. H. McAlpine, Canadian millionaire mining man, who, with seven com- pantons, on a treasure hunt by airplane was lost in the Arctic_for 1wo months. Richard Pearce of the party kept.a diary and 1s releting the story of the party. After landing mear the Eskimo settle- ment of Dease Point, far above the Arctic Cirele, the party fought their way, With Eskimos puiding them, over ice and | snow fo Kent Peminsula, 'across Dease Stra‘t from the tracng post of Cam: | Bridge Bay. The party rested at Kent | Pentnsula. awaiting cold weather, 5o the water would freeze. and prepdred to start across on October 26. BY RICHARD PEARCE. By Radio to The Star. BATHURST Circle, Northwest Territo; November 11.—On October 2 on our trek aci Strait to the trading post at Cambridge | fused. 4 Breakfast came at 5 o'clock and | spent on feeding up, and it was. Bay. then we were off. The traveling was ILET, Above Arctic [not successful, though from all appear- Canada, | ances the straits had closed up again. we started | Another suggestion that one of their ross the treacherous Dease | number take a note to the post was re- Gifcult, but one of the Eskimos said we | would teach the other side in thrce noon when it was announced that we hours. Suddenly, to our consternation and apparently to that of the Eskimos as well, we ran into & lead of water. A hurried consultation tool: place among our guides, and we started along the water looking for some place to cross. “There was none. but soon an ice floe 100 yards wide was noticed to be mov- ing. showing that the straits were break- up again. 3’:1‘5. journeyed back to shore—the two miles or so that had taken nearly three hours to cover. Igloos were gebuilt and hope held of colder weather that night to close up the leads. Instead it turned warmer. The temperature rose to above gero and a wind blew strongly all night. ‘That evening flares were sent off on the top of & high hill, on the chance that some one on the Cambridge side of the straits would notice them and help be sent out. We found out later that Eskimos 130 miles away had seen the flares, but the people at Cambridge were unable to do so, as that settlement : surrounded on three sides by high ills. The food question again became acute on October 27. All the frozen fresh fish were gone by that time, and there was nothing left but dried herring and #ifcfish. That the Eskimos had ex- pected no difficulty in making the cross- ing is indicated by the fact that no tea, coffee, flour or oatmeal had been saved. Agpin nothing was left but dog food. Thereafter members of the party re- ferred to the northwest arm of Kent Peninsula as Peechuk Point, meaning in Eskimo “all gone.” Eskimos Lose Smiles. There was & long conference that morning in ourigloo, and for the first time since we met them the Eskimos had lost their smiles. Two of them " started off late in the afternoon for ‘Dease Point, intending to travel all night and expecting to be back in two days. Colder weather would by then close up the straits again. October 28 gave us little comfort in the way of weather. The wind continued and the ice moved until there were open stretches two to three miles wide separating us from i bridge Bay. Much of the ice which had been there & few days previously had moved down the coast, and it looked as though it would take a long time to repair the damage. though the day seemed comparatively mild, it was raw in the igloo, so we spent our time in our sleep- ing unti} the Eskimos warned us we had better get up, as the continued heat was causing us to perspire. So we had to get up, and were even more miserable. The old order of stay- ing in bed until noon that had reigned at Dease Point, s0 as to cut down on food requirements, again went into ef- fect, but it was a long wait until the two Eskimos, Charlie and Jimmie, re- turned about 6 a.m. on November 1. By that time our food supply had dwindled " to almost nothing. ~Worse still, our fuel had run out, and there was no way of heating the only food left—frozen herring. It was a question of eat the fish raw or not, and we had to eat. . | Joe, another of the Eskimos, had gone for seal blubber, but there was not It was a crushed party | THE EVENING STAR. —WAS \ ) NGTON. P. 7. MONDAY. NOVEMBER 11, 1929. momentous part of our whole experi- ence. Quotations are taken verbatim from the diary. It reads: Diary Account. “Saturday, November 2—Had a won- derful breakfast of three cups of tea, & half bannock and a big slice of boiled Barren Land trout. The hour ap- proaches, I hope, when we spend the night at Cambridge Bay post™ The following was writteni that night: “What a tough day, hour after hour tryi to pick a course through a large enough of it to use for fuel. It did, however, give off a dull light, but that was little comfort to us, who wanted cooked food. The Eskimos offered us blubber. but one trial convinced those of our party who tried it that blubber is an acquired taste, and we had not then got to the stage where we could stand it. Two 4-gallon tins of it were alongside my head all night, and the smell alone was nauseating. Food Almost Gone. At this time the total food supply for he party, humans and the dogs, was 12 pounds of herring and the skins of per- haps a dozen or more others. When_Charlie and Jimmie got back they ushered in another’ reversal of conditions for- which our stay in the Arctic had been replete. They brought fish, ptarmigans, ground squirrel, flour, sugar, coffee and tobacco. It did not take long for the ‘Eskimo women to make bannock, and even though it was cooked with seal oil, it tasted wonder-| “Alice, wife of the Eskimo with whom fully good to us. And the toba¢co was | McAlpine, Baker and I were traveling, an_unhoped-for treat. | took her boy, 3 years old, after he had The Eskimos told us that on Ostober |been tossed from the sled several times, 27 the Eskimos who had stayed behind | stripped him naked and tied him on her at Dease Point had heard a plane, but |back under her clothing. This did not could not see it. No better news could |stop her from continuing a man's share have been brought us, as it showed a |of the work of urging on the dogs and search was being carried on and pros- | helping tug the sled over the most diffi- | pects were good for being picked up at|cult spots. any time. |7 “Crossing a weak spot of ice, appar- Efforts to persuade the Eskimos tojently frozen only on the night before, start for the post on November 1 were|Alice broke through to her knees. In- stead of trylog to scramble out and probably sinking ‘deeper, she lay flat and one of theEskimos rescued her.| On we went for a guarter mile. Then Alice stripped off her clothing and | changed into dry clothing out in the | open without any apparent great dis- | comfort, even though the (empentun‘i‘ was_well below zero. The experience might have been tragic to one of us whites, but Alice when redressed calmly | lit a cigarette, made with a toilet paper wrapper, and carried on as before. “At 4 pm. we struck thin ice that| the Eskimos could find no way to cross. | It was then a matter of parking for the | night on the ice, hoping that in the ! morning the thin ice would become safe | for* the best going. Sleds were tugged and pushed over ice hummocks that seemed to us uninitiated as impossible to cross. And there was the scrambling out of the way as we tumbled into holes between ice cakes. It was all nerve- racking, and, oh, so tiring! Narrow leads of unsafe ice had to be crossed, but before doing so the Eskimos tested them with spears. They sald the day was to be The morale of the whole party rose to a high point again late that after- were to start in the morning for Cam- | bridge Bay. It was 12 days since we had left Dease Point—days when pa- tience was tried to the limit. 1If there had been any encouragement from the heads of our party, other members no doubt would have tried to make the crossing for the actual crossing of the straits, which I feel sure was the most “Buy Safetx"" You “buy safety” when you place your money and valuables in a bank—you “buy safety” when you insure your property—you're always ice_floe, wandering this way and that| hi Some of the party wore fearful the strong wind then blowing the straits going. that would carry the floe down and perhaps break it up. The assured us that the wind would die down during the night. The colonel, Bob Baker, and I crawled into our sleep- ing bags, and I doubt that I was never more tired in all my life. I hadlto be awakened between cups of tea. Colonel Didn’t Complain. “The colonel was in agony from chafed feet, but never a complaint from im. “As the Eskimos are still up, an op- portunity is given to bring up the diary. Bu: we are getting near the post, and Sunday should see us there, unless we run into more grief. v “The colonel just told Bob that he had a hunch our fortunes were going to switch tomorrow. Our bad luck had passed and better things were in store for us. Then no more of trying to keep up this record with half-frozen fingers in the away below freezing temperature. “An igloo is being built with a sweep- ing wind searching us to the marrow. The colonel a¥ I are unable to do much, except a little chinking and a few other such minor things, such as trying to move snow blocks into position for Jack to work. As Bob is skilled in that, Jack prefers his assistance to any the colonel and I can offer, but we had to do something to keep warm, so the colonel and I helped hold a tarpaulin on the top of the igloo while Jack cov- ered the edges with small snow blocks. My frozen mocassins slipped in the dark, and I crashed in a part of the house. Jack flew up for a few seconds at my clumsiness. but cut now blocks, FAILING APPETITES DR. SIEGERT'S Sameformula since 1824 Delicious on foods—aids the appetite e Al striving to “‘buy safety” in your every move and transaction. Don’t forget you can “buy safety” in taxicab service, too! Insist on using “BLACK & WHITE” and “YELLOW?” taxicabs BECAUSE The “Black and White” and “Yellow” Taxicabs are operated by a financially responsible Washington organization. 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Eskimos | bridge an be stimulated by properly | and we were eventually settled for the night.” For the final day of the trip to Cam- Bay the diary is also quoted, as follows: “Night of nights! We are at Cam- bridge Bay. Messages have gone out to our familles, and we can go to bed in peace. But what a day! It started at 5 am. with ery scanty breakfast, and then a race across thin ice. The colonel, who was in apparent great dis- .comfort, got a ride part way over the ifirst five-mile stretch, but the rest of jlus had to run, dodging the dark-green lspou in the ice that one could see 'wavering under the man ahead. “Dogs were urged by word and lash to keep moving, and we had to keep up, knowing that if anything happened to one of us there would be real danger in the other stopping to try to help. My isecond wind passed by without recogni- [{tion, and I was running on my fifth about the second mile. How we kept going I don’t know, except that we had to. “By the time we got on safe ice it was early. Our legs were tired, sore and ‘(‘thDQd. and the bitter wind, combined S€ Ask any druggist for the red box of HILL'S with 27 below zero temperature, bit into our lungs. Even with the strenuous ex- ercise, faces and fingers were frost bit- ten. The thin ice had a layer of salty slush on it, which worked into our footwear, and in no time moccasions, duffles and sbcks were frozen together. “Poor Don! Can see his face as he struggled along with feet frost bitten from the day before. As we traveled, one member of the party close to an- ather, a hurried search was made for frost-bitten features. ‘Your chin' or ‘Your nose is frozen' would be heard. Four times my nose had thawed out during the day. “My personal casualty list for the day was. Six finger tips, 10 toe tips, both cheeks, chin and nose frost bitten. This | was probably an average for the rest of the party, excepting Don, who was worst hit. v “We had 12 miles to go, but we must have traveled at least 30, dodging around floes to get the best going. Just when we needed the rest most, the dogs played out and it became a question of | a continual walk or trot, as the going | permitted. “None of us will ever forget Novem- Now stop COLD & 3 ways—in a day Stuffed-up head that makes you talk through your nose, sniffling, aching bones oranasty cough calls for Hill’s. No better way to get rid of a cold quickly, safely. Stops cold 3 ways in one-third the usual time ... Iz Checksfever. .. 2: Opens bowels, no griping ... 3: Tones system, brings back energy. Get Hill's, take it today and get rid of that cold. _ CASCARA- QUININE ber 3, 1920. We had every reason to remember it, miles away from Cam- bridge Bay. Those miles seemed extra Jong. We could see what looked like a | beacon post for ships.” Mr. Pearce's next article will tell of the joyous welcome at Cambridge Bay. - Canalization of St. Lawrence. Chairman Snell of the House rules committee announced yesterday he | would sponsor at the regular December session a bill to authoriz> the canaliza- tion of the St. Lawrence River, co necting the Great Lakes and the At- lantic, to cost between $225,000,000 and $300,000,000. | Troubled with system. Epsotabs — the | They are Epsom Salts fuseimitations.Atdrug- gists. Write for free sample to The Dill Co.,Norristown, Pa. | 25 in a box for 25¢ | 60 in a box for 50¢ form and sugar-coated. Easy and pleasant to take. Re. ELKS EVADE HUNTERS. Bombardment on Opening Day * Season Causés’ Retreat. GREAT FALLS, Mont, November 11 (®)-—A plethora of hunters has saved the elk of Jefferson National Forest. Six hundred huntsmen en- tered the woods yesterday on the first day of the open season and a great slaughter was expected. 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