AN ARCTIC JOURNEY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 453, 27 March 1909, Page 4

AN ARCTIC JOURNEY.

AN’ FXFCORFR’S adyfnTURKS. Captain Mikkelsen recently returned from a long Arcticjourney. Nearlyjthree years ago he sailed from Victoria (British Columbia} in am e ship, and made his way through Behring Strait and on-' foard Cover icy seas to Flaxman Island,,a distance of about 10,000 milesl‘-j .. The Object of his voyage \yas to test tlsfe 1 old Kskimo stpry that an Arctic continent lies north of the Taraway Flaxman Island. The island where 60 or 70 Eskimos live, was reached in September, 1906, and here the expedition took up its winter quarters. In. the summer of 1907 they steered the little ship into the pack ice, and took soundings whether the sea bed would support the probability of land further north. They found that the sea bird dipped abruptly to a great depth, suggesting that no land lay to the north.

The ship was destroyed in the ice, and Captain Mikkelsen sent, his crew home in a whaling vessel, and with a sledge and ten dogs, set out on a lonely journey along the ice-bound coast to Voldez, the nearest point from which he comd gel a boat to Seattle. He carried provisions sufficient for 600 miles of the distance, and after that depended on the F,skimos and what game he could kill. ‘■lt wcs, I suppose, the longest journey ever made that way,’ he said, in describing the trip, “ and it took me five months and a half. At night I put up a little tent and slept hi a bag. It was in the death of winter, and in the middle of ihe day it. was no lighter than it is in Condon now between four and five in the afternoon.

“The light lasted only four hours or so a day, and lor foity three days I never saw the sun at aii. Instead Chad ihe moon, and very enjoyable it was to tramp along in the bright, moonlight. But at dusk the effect was very curious, for then the moon threw no shadow, and I went along warily, unable to see whether I was on the verge of - a hollow, or within arm's length of a wall of ice. Altogether I had 25 dogs, but at times I ran so short of food that I had to kill a dog and use it lor food.”