VALUABLE FURS SAVED

Hokitika Guardian, 1 February 1932, Page 7

VALUABLE FURS SAVED

CANADIAN SHIP IN ARCTIC. DARING SALVAGE WORK. TRAVERSING DANGEROUS ICE. VANCOUVER, December 12. Using dog sleds for bridges over crocks in the ice, and rcpes to pull themsedves over huge bergs, 0. D. Morris, trapper, a passenger on the Hudson’s Ray Company steamship BaychimOj and three Eskimo trappers, completed one of the most daring salvage jobs in Ardtic history. Morris and the natives, after a disheartening struggle for 15 miles over the ice to the Baychimo, frozen in at Point Barrow when the Arctic winter caught her before sbe could escape to open water in the south, brought bacx bales of valuable furs.

After a terrific three-day Arctic storm the Baychimo disappeared. The 17 men. who had been on the vessel, and had established shelter near her, gave her up for lost, but a few days later the trader, like a gbost ship, was seen against the horizon by an Eskimo. She was five miles off shore. With an Eskimo guide and a large dog team Morris began his search, but when he reached the vicinity of the vessel he saw she had moved: 15 miles out from shore. If seemed almost impossible to reach her. “Ice kill quick, no man travel that kind ice,” his native guide told him. However, at daylight Morris set out. After 15 hours’ struggle, fighting his way through tumbling masses of ice, he had hut a mile to go, But fatigue and livtngar forced him to turn about and labour his way to shore. The next morning he obtained tn® services of three Eskimo trapper®. The four started out with two dog teams, using sled's to bridge gaps in the ice and pulling themselves over bergs with ropes. A half-mile “away from the ship they were forced to abandon the dog teams, because of increasingly rough ice. After four hours with 14 bales of fur on their backs, they set out for the dogs. Twelve hours later, exhausted, all reached the shore.