MAPPING UNKNOWN ARCTIC REGIONS

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 288, 31 August 1921, Page 7

MAPPING UNKNOWN ARCTIC REGIONS

AN AMERICAN EXPEDITION TO BA HEIN IfAND. — ( An attempt to map Baffin Land, thn vast Arctic island south-west of Greenland, is tho main objective of tho .Donald B. MacMillan a Reuter message sent from New York last month. Tho tiny 115-ton schooner Bowdoin carries the party north., Tho crew consists of' six meii. She. is sheathed with ironwood, 'B7 feet long, with a draught of 9.J feet. Crude oil engines capable of developing; GO horse-power are included in her equipment, as well as 2000 gallons of fuel oil and .500 gallons ot kerosene. The Bowdoin also carries stores and provisions sufficient to ’ast her crew two years. \ The head of the expedition waSt Peary s chief lieutenant on the latter’s successful dash to tho North. Polo in 1909./ He has made eigllt voyages into the Arctic regions- According to MacMillan’s'* plans ho intends to reach Baffin Land about August 15 and establish., a camp tu of the entrance to. the dangerous Ji'iiry and Hecla Straits, where the ships <-4 Captains Barry and Lyon, seekers of the North-weet Passage, were blocked a con* tury ago. MacMillan’s Crocker Land expedition passed there tho winters of 1913-14-15-16. On that occasion tho expedition was once reported lost, and two relief expeditions* were sent out for it, but MacMillan finally returned. He announced that Crocker Land was not “land as believed I'ossiblo by Peary, but an ice “itoring the winter of 1921-22 Attempts will bo made to explore the coast of Baffin Land, and the following sunnier an effort will be made to penetrate tins interior, where, according to Eskimo tales theto exists one of the richest and most dllurlng fields of research in tm> frozen north. The island-is said to nave groat miiiernl deposits and to possess high mountains and beautiful lakes which have never been seen by a white man. The region is believed to be cn immense breeding-ground for water fowl, whose nesting’ habits will be the sub J \ of study, while tho .programme ot tho scientists of tho expedition al6o«catls for field work: in. zoology, botany, geology, meteorology, and terrestrial magnetism Special observations will bo taken of the magnetic pole, which was ,' cc f first by Jamps Ross in 1830 on the finther side of tho Boothia Peninsula, not far from IMkcMillan’s proposed winter camp. An attempt will also be made to circumnavigate Baffin Land. \ Tn tho event of a serious i.wsluip to tho Bowdoin tho party plans to r'.'J ent by dog and sledge to Fort Chnrchil , a trading post at the foot of Hudson Hay, and thence return to civilisation by way of North-Western Canada. . MacMillan was bom in Provincetown, Mass., on November 10, 1874. the Fun, of a. Cano Cod sea captain. He un from Bowdon College in 1898 and took up postgraduate work nt Harvard in 1910-12. Before becoming an explorer ho was a teacher and public school principal, n addition Io accompanying 1 enry cn ms last famous trip'norfh hp was n member 'of the Cabot Labrador iexpc<liii<in in 1910, and. as previously referred to. fbe leader of tho Crocker Land expedition three years later. In 1911 And 1912 he made ethnological studies of the I'/ikimog of Labrador J He is .unmarried: