LOST IN ARCTIC

Hokitika Guardian, 29 June 1929, Page 3

LOST IN ARCTIC

NIGHTS OF CRUEL-SUFFERING. ravenous, .mankjllk; DOGS (By ARTHUR LOWE, explorer.' TORONTO, April 27. After a .seven-weeks struggle against wind and bhs.er.ng cold I nave reached civilisation once again—following my nine-months- sojourn in the Canadian Arctic. And although tragedy and misfortune overtook -the expedition, there is reason to believe that success will come one of failure, for J have brought back with me samples of gold ore so rich that geologists believe the area from which they have come will prove richer than the Yukon. Already three areoplanes belonging to the expedition are winging their way northwards with prospectors and engineers to investigate these discoveries. My own experience this winter and those of my two companions, ]. C. Cusack and J. D. Donovan, have certainly been exciting. After our schooner, the Patrick and Michael sank last October we were marooned in the barrens for several weeks because our small boat bad frozen in the diore ice.

Eventually we chopped it free and ind worked our way to within a few •n:!cs of a fur-trading post on Baker jalte. At that point we erected .i tireless station, and Inter in the winder moved our equipment and isstabishment a base. 50 DEGREES BELOW ZERO. In January it became necessary for me ol us to leave L.r civilisation, an indesiraiile job with the temperature ranging from .15 degree to 50 degree, iclow jsero. Because of the heavy drifts it was impossible for an aero ilano to lie sent in, and finally I ar-

ranged to make the Bdo-milos jour liny to Steel, neoinpanied by Cajil. L). Berthe, a fur-trader, and Shevekaratli, an Eskimo hunter. Our start was fraught with tragedy. There were no caribou in tlie Baker Lake district this year, and in consequence, there was. no food for the .logs. Early in the year the dogs in the vicinity of the post were rendered vicious by starvation. And several natives were attacked and bitten.

On (be day we had a ranged to leave our own team killed and ate an Eskimo boy. We left on the following day, but throughout the dogs. were Ki ferocious as to be a'most uncontrollable.

We carried enough dog’s food to last for a week and provision for ourselves for two weeks. We honed to find game to the south with which we could feed the dogs, and replenish supplies. The hope proved vain.

Day after day passed and we met n ,v sign of living tilings. Night after night we underwent tlie eerie experience of hearing the dogs scratching at the snow walls of the igloo (ice h"tt trying to reach us. We slept fitful'y with snow knives in readiness to repel attack. During tlie day tlie dogs were kept in subjection with lash. After travelling f >r two wee’xs and covering approximately 300 miles, wo realised that we were lost. Shevekakntli had never been south before.' Owing to magnetic disturbances in tlm area our compasses were useless. There were no land marks—iust hundreds of miles of snow-covered barrens for tho greater part of the time the sun was ohsoued.

To add +o our difficulties a blizzard began and tlie drifting snow was n« mmenetrable as a London fog. Prno"ross was out of tho question. AVo built a snow house and prepared to wait for the blizzard to blow itself out.

On the second day our food gave ou+ and our fil'd snpnlv ran nerionsly low On the third day we were redin' 1 ' 1 to less than a quart of paraffin for the stove. NAKED TN THE SNOW. On the third night tho snow house co’lapsed under the pressure of the wind, and as we were sleeping Es-kim-n-fashion naked in our sleeping hags, we siilfered'cruelly from the told For balf-an-houi; we groped for our bearskin clothes under ihe piled n* snow, subjected meanwhile to a 00 lniles-an-hour wind and a temperature of '<o degrees below zero. For thuee days more the blizzard lasted. On the fourth day we headed blindly for tho coast wi + h dogs which were oil the faint of collapse. Bv good fortune we reached a fur trading post on the roast two <1 av sou'll ahum the coast of Hudson Rnv and. although again caught by a Id'" zqrd. the journey was /omiiarat iv' 1 '" uneventful. From Churchill we struck across timber eountrv to the end o r Steel, and finally t r > Toronto. T was pleased to write finis to my assignment.