IN ARCTIC CIRCLES

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 71, 24 March 1934, Page 8

IN ARCTIC CIRCLES

WHAT WOMEN DO

(From "The Post's" Representative.) VAN"COTTVEB, February. 16. There are now seven women, among the three hundred men on the Great Bear Lake mining-camps. . First to arrive was Mrs. Joe Gerhart, who went north from the Peace River in. the summer of 1932, wheu her husband substituted the 'drill for' the plough. Nevt was Mrs. Harry Keid, who opened the first restaurant on the fringe of the Arcti* Circle. Then, came Mrs. Victor Ingraham, native of Lake Athabasca, whose husband, Captain Ingraham, lost both feet, amputated as a result of privations he suffered after his schooner, last to cross Great Bear before the present freeze-up, exploded' and sank. They have three children. The fourth is Miss Anna Swanson, not yet twenty, whose name appears on official maps on a sizeable tract of country; known as i^'Anna Claims," staked in the fall 0f,^931 by Henry Swanson, wlio felt the gr'bundiiwas promising, enough to bear the name, of his flaxen-haired daughter. Fifthfto arrive is the To-ronto-born sister "of-an Olympic hockey star, bride of. Bert-'Airth, who drove holes in the enemyiWline for Queen's University Rugby team,-and is now driving them intoia silverrladen mountain in the largest group ;of claims at Great Bear. Sixth is a' transplanted Maritimer, wife of Pilot' Harry Hayter, who is running-an air;taxi between Cameron Bay, 1 headquarters of the settlement, andJ surrounding camps. Seventh and last to: arrive is Mrs. Tom Byrnes, Toronto nurse; and wife "of the Great Bear doctor. ._ \ DESTINT IN THE NORTHLAND.! Mrs. Gerhart, the vetera% ias; duringsher brief residence oit'the "inside," traversed the' Peace* and Slave Eivers, crossed Great-Bear Lake, drifted down the Mackenzie, mightiest of. Canada's waterways^fought the rapids of the Bear, and trailed the receding ice on the greatest of'inland seas. By contrast, Miss Anna-Swanson had a comfortable post in.: a- warm office in Edmonton, the Alberta capital. She went north to spend her summer holidays with her father in 1932. Back at her desk, she disappeared in the following winter, picked up the airmail at Fort Mac Murray, and walked into her father's cabin, unannounced to make her home on. the "inside" for duration. "It's no place for a woman yet;; Mac Murra y's is near enough to the Pole for her,at present," observed Pilot Hayter, when he went in. A month later, his bride was at Cameron Bay, helping him build his home.

Mac Murray, Busiest1 airport in Canada, is the intermediate base for women seeking their destiny in the Northland. Here they meet the wives of the men;who fly his Majesty's -mails to the shores of the Arctic Ocean Gilbert,; F.E.G.S., Dickins, May, Burgess Brinthell, Hollicfc, Kenyon— -whose names are a household word throughout Canada, From them they learn the cardinal points of housekeeping under the njidnight sun, and are inducted into the Sisterhood of the North. In the "cracking open" of the Arctic, they will do their share, equally with their menfolk. As they, go; farther in, modern science, in the form of radio, helps them keep touch with what is going on in the world, from London to Invercargilj and Cape Town, as they help-to unroir the map of Canada for settlement and civilisation—pioneers, in the last degree; true daughters of tlie Arctic,