A VOYAGE IN THE ARCTIC

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3024, 10 March 1917, Page 2

A VOYAGE IN THE ARCTIC

REMARKABLE KINEMA EECOED. A very wonderful travel picture was shown at the Queen's Theatre last night. Iho filni tells , ■ the , story'of the. very eventful aud 'very' interesting voyage'of the little trading.schooner.which brought off the survivors of the Stefansson Arctic Expedition, marooned on tho ice in tho white waste of the Arctic. Stefansson sailed with his party from Victoria, British Columbia in June, 1913, but after only two months tho expedition's ship was lost, and the unhappy men remained on the ice for thirteen months, until they were picked up. The little ship which made the rescue did not set out on any such mission when she 6ailed from-her home-port. . Her owner's object to "buy furs and other Arctic trophies, and on this voyage she visited many .strange places, where little known peoples live very curious lives. So it ■happens that the film taken on tho voyage is one of the most educative that could ever be prepared. It is not a mere panorama of . frozen wastes, although it does give a very clear idea of what Arctic seas and ice plains and skies look, like in the northern summer and twilight. The spectator is taken on a voyage of discovery to civilised and semicivilised towns on the Alaskan and Siberian seaboard, and.to Eskimo settlements in the still'further north.. These native peoples have probably l never before been portrayed by the kinema, for the very good reason-that it is no small undertaking to' exploit tho Arctic Circle for show purposes. ' Some of • these tribes on the Russian side .- especially aTe amongst the most primitive typ'ps known in all the world, and all of them are simple, guileless; folk, liyine hard lives in a close, and continuous struggle with harsh nntiire. The picture shows also many interesting snapshots of the animal life of the Eskimo'• country. The film undoubtedly has educative merit to a degree rarely attained by tho product of "tho ltinema. As a spectaelp it is interesting.- There is no'superfluous emphasis.of often'repeated detail, of dreary waste, which mars most films of this character.' The actual rescue provides a human tliem? never absent from the picture, and the picking up of the two marooned parties, the starving survivors, broken-hearted men, is full of pathos. The first screening of this wonderful picture, was witnessed, by a large crowd of people, the theatre being quite -filled.