MAN V. NATURE

Hokitika Guardian, 27 November 1929, Page 2

MAN V. NATURE

HEROES OF ANTARCTIC. BYRD AND HIS COMPANIONS. Down in the Australian and New Zealand quadrants of the Antarctic Commander Byrd leads a small army olf intrepid men who are mapping the landscape and daily adding to our sum of knowledge of the desolate Antarctic wihls. The world calls these men Anieiicans; but what manner of men are they? Clerks, returned soldiers, sailors, parsons’ sons—aS varied a collection as ever served in such an enterprise. LITTLE AMERICA, Antarctica,, Ist October.

Following is the actual personnel of the supporting sledge party leaving to spy out the unknown land south of our base:—• Arthur Walden, leader of the party and a dog driver all his life, was born in Indianapolis, 10th May, 1871. His father was the Rev. Treadwill Walden, who for a time was rector of old St. Paul’s Church in Boston just before Phillips Brooks was there. Although his family moved to Boston, Walden was seat to the Shattuck military school at Bnribault, Minn., and alter leaving there he went to farming in New Hampshire.

“I got restless,” he said, “and tossed a coin to see whether I should go to South Africa or Alaska. It came down Alaska, and tTiaT in how I happened to come down here,” Walden got to Alaska in 1898, two years before the famous gold rush started, and for seven years he drove dogs, freighted loads into the mines and over the dangerous trails along the Yukon and over the mountains. Then he returned to the East and married Katherine Sleeper, grand-daughter of Captain Sleeper, who was Mayor of Roxbury, Mass. Walden went to farming again, and settled at Wonalancet, N.H., where he has lived ever since, driving and breeding sledge dogs for a hobby. Walden introduced dog racing in the East, and with his famous leader, Chinook, who died down ltere, won several important races'. He is' t'he author of “ A Dog Puncher on the Yukon.” . DE GANAHL BORN IN MEXICO. Joe de Ganahl is navigator 'df the supporting party. He was with Commander'Byrd on his North Pole expedition. Hfe was born at Tampico, Mexico; 30th December, 1902, the son of Charles F. and Florence'de Ganahl.’ He -lived on a sugar plantation near Tampico,- and at Mexico City until 1913, when the revolution forced, his family to leave.

ne went to the Hackley School at Tarrytown, N.Y., from 1915 to 1921, then entered Harvard and was graduated in 1925. He was on the Harvard Crimson Board for four years, and assistant managing editor his last two years. While at' Harvard he entered the Naval Receive avia Hon unit at Boston, and in the summer of 1904’was at the naval rtlr station at Squantum as a siudent aviator. He had advance training at the naval air station at Hampton Roads, Vn., in the summer of 1925, and wus commissioned as ensign in the fleet reserve nvaition as a naval aviator in December, 1925.

He entered Yale University in the fall of 1925 to take Professor Baker’s course in playwriting, and at the same time became a reporter on “ The New Register.” He left there in April, 1926, to join the Byrd North Pole expedition. On his return he married Josephine Coombs, of Scarsdale, N.Y., and rejoined the staff of “The New Haven Register.” Later he was a reporter on “The White Plains Reporter” and “ The New York Herald.”

During his training in the Naval Reserve he studied navigation, and later took up the subject under Commander Theodore Nelson, of the Naval Reserve, head of the Nautical Academy in New York. This winter he has further extended his knowledge of navigation by studying under Commander Byrd. He was in active training at the Rockwayn aval air station in 1927 ,and 1928, and joined the expedition in the summer of 1928. He has a two-year-old son, Charles.

FOUGHT FOR BRITISH. Christopher Rraathen is the ski expert of the expedition. He was born at Eker, Norway on 29th June, 1895. He went to high school and the technical school at Horton, and between periods of school went to sea, making voyages to German West Africa, serving at a whaling station, and sailing out of Capetown several times. When the war started he joined the English transport service, and served in this in the Channel and on two voyages to the Congo. After leaving the British service lie served in the Norwegian Navy’s aviation section, and then completed his schooling in Norway, and went to sea again.

After a voyage which landed him in Hamburg, Germany, he worked as an engine erector for a year, and theft Avent to the technical school at Thuringen, from which he was graduated as a civil engineer. The lure of the sea Avas too strong for Chris to settle doAvn long, liOAvever, and for the next feAV years he sailed the seven seas in the ships of several nations. He has Avon several ski races in Nonvay.

Jacob Bursey, avlio is knoAvn as Jack or “Hob” is 26, and Avas borne at St. Luna ire, in the St. Bards district of Newfoundland, the most northern part of that country, on the Belle Isle Strait.

St. Lunaire is a fishing villiage, and Jack’s people are fishermen. They hunt seals in the spring, fish in the sum-

mer and fall, and, with his father, William Bursey, Jack used to go on trips to St. John’s to dispose of the' fish caught during the season. He learned to drive dogs at his home, for they are used there for transport during the long winter season. After attending the local schools, Bursey decided to go to school in : the States, and in 1924 Avent to Boston Avhere he spent a year in a mechanical school. The folloAving summer he Avas in charge of a yacht at Naushon Island near Woods Hole, on the Southern Massachusetts coast, and then Avent to NeAV York to study in the Missionary Training Institute, as he Avanted to go back home as a missionary, inspired by the example of Sir Wilfred Grenfell, avlio often stopped at his father’s home.

But he left the school and Avent to Avork in NeAv York on river boats until he saAv that the Byrd expedition Avas being organised and applied for a job. On the trail, Walden, Braathen, and Bursey will drive the dog teams, Avith Walden in charge of the party, and de Ganahl will, in.addition to his duties as navigator, be radio operator and cook.