IN ANTARCTICA

Hokitika Guardian, 8 January 1929, Page 6

IN ANTARCTICA

— BYRD’S TRANSPORT PROBLEM. (By Russell Owen—Copyrighted 192 < by the New York Times Company, and St:. Louis Post Dispatch.. All rights for publication reserved throughout Hie world. Wireless to New York limes.) BAY OF WHALES, January 6. To-day we moved our main base. It is the first time the Stars and Stripes have ever flown on the Antarctic Continent. Our adventures continue and we are learning something about this extraordinary part of the world. The 21st December was our midsummer day and yet even liow ice fills the Bay o' Whaies. A leader in the Antarctic is unfair to his shipmates if he does no! exercise much patience with the elements. Each day brings a new caprice of nature. Yesterday a ten-loot (rack opened in the bay. ice, between the slii :• and the main base seven miles away, and we have to send our nine heavily loaded dog teams to the westward to get around this. Now the distance we must haul our loads is nine miles. Tim makes eighteen miles daily for the teams. To-morrow we expect to have ten dog teams on the job. hut still the transport of our material will he a long slow process. Our shipmates nucleistand the problem, and those not on watch at the ship unci at camp hav< volunteered to man-haul the equipment at the base with sleds. From no m to seven o’clock they managed to pull a ton,and a-half of material a third o the way to the base. To-morrow they have got to haul at least five tons the same distance. The dogs will then take it the rest of the way. It will bo some days before we can do any flying, as we must give’our'efforts to getting our material to the shore, and erect houses. The first of four houses should bo up within forty-eight hours. It will then take at least a week to prepare and tend the ice-field, and another several weeks before we can do any flying. It is only by proceeding with thoroughness that we will he able f'• succeed. The ice between us and the base may begin to break up at any time; and so we must he on the job continuously with radio, strict rules and look-out to prevent the transportation party getting caught on an ico 1100.

SIX -MONTHS OF NIGHT

The men are safe as long as wo can keep our glasses on them, but in the case of fog or snow ice, when the party I and ship lookout lose track of each i other, a navigator with compass is sent in with dog Teams. The route is j marked with orange yellow flags which ; are most visible on snow, and all hands have instructions to make rapidly for i the camp in case ol fog or snow. VithI out Hags it would he quite easy to got ! lost in a snowstorm that might last lor * days. Every member of,the transportj ation party is required to take Ins reindeer, skin sleeping hag with him so that he can. weather a storm if necesj sary. No one l is permitted on the unex- ; plpred part of the Barrier without a ; companion tied to him with an Alpine | rope. I After the dog teams left yesterday a huge icefield of enormous jagged cakes drifted rapidly on to us from the east, and to pr.event having our ship injured by it . we had to leave our berth alongside the ire and put to sea. We could not drift with the wind as that won! I have taken us up against the Ice Bar Her. so we hoisted sailed and moved >bout all night. In this way we saved Mai, for we are 2.790 mdes Irom t:l'• nearest coaling stati'n and are nursin' our precious fuel with the greatest possible care. We must leave seventy!i*c tons on (lie Barrier for fuel during six months of ni-.dit. and so ho’ thy beginning preservation oj coal hasbeen one of onr serious problems. This would not have been possible without the tow of 1000 miles on the voyage from New Zealand The party is out fiver'* O-’v. AYe expect to use seal I)!:. 1 . • (!'->)■ f I and light during the ! ■; joiiHis .iii -.f, and meat for lecdi •; .’)(' dog . f roiu the skins we will m i,,. ,!■ Hiiu We would he well sup- ’’> oii if we could procure some ol the great schools of killer and tinner whales that are blowing and snorting day and night along the edge of the flee. When they dive under the water .after blowing, their great fins hvk like the periscope of a submarine •submerging. Our expedition ship, Eleanor Bolling heads lor us on her three thousand mile, voyage on January lOtli. We postponed her departure from Nov Zealand from January Ist owing to the unusually had pack ice that lies in our path for several hundred miles. '•Ye think that by the time the Eleanor Bolling reaches the pack, it will have drifted awa.v mostly to the westward.