KIDNAPPED AS BABY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3685, 1 September 1927, Page 1

KIDNAPPED AS BABY.

LIFE WITH THE INDIANS. EXPERIENCES IN ARCTIC Wastes. Kidnapped as a three-year-old baby, and brought up by Indians, after they had killed his parents and set fire to their lonely shack in the great Arctic wastes,, in the .days of the old Hudson Bay Company, Dr. 11. J. Esmonde, now lives in Melbourne, where he arrived recently from the United States. His life is like a chapter from one of Jack London’s or Rex Beach’s ro mances, with a touch of R. M. Ballanfyne, who was an old Hudson Bay Company servant. When Dr. Esmonde was 13 years of age lie was recovered from the Indiahs’ control by an old missionary priest, who had known his parents and had been searching for the missing boy for 10 years. The missionaries directed the boy’s education along such good lines that he qualified as a doctor. Now Dr. Esmonde spends his time travelling round the glode.i Married to an Australian, he intends to make Mel-, bourne his home for the future.

Of a quiet, reserved disposition, the doctor seems to have absorbed the Indian distates for demonstration. He impressed by his very reserve. He spoke of his life among the Indians in the great wastes of snow and ice. “All I can remember of the awful tragedy that befell my parents,” Dr. Esmonde said in a recent interview,” is of the flames when the Indians set our home on fire. I can recall even now the flashing of the fire and the coming of the Indian attackers. My father, who was a doctor, and my mother lived in their timber cabin on the banks of the Prosperine River. The nearest settlement was a place called Rampart, and their nearest neighbour, another Hudson’s Bay representative, was about 700 miles'distant. I am speaking now of the “seventies,” when settlers were almost unknown in those regions. The half-bred, who did the rougher work for my father, was absent at the time of the Indian attack, I learned later: Even to-day I don’t like to think of the awful agonies my father and mother must have undergone on that tragic night.

TEN YEARS OF NOMADIC LIFE. “The hut was about 120 miles north of the Arctic Circle. All that district was in the Nor’-West Territory, and was 'under the control of the Hudson Bay Company, which later handed it over to the Canadian Government. And later still it became known as the. Yukon. All that time nobody dreamed that the country would one day be invaded by fortune-seekers hurrying forward to make their fortunes —so they hoped—on the goldfields. The yellow metal was well hidden under the snow and ice.

' “The Dogrib tribe of Indians, who ihad taken me ,away with ythem, were kind to me in their own undemonstrative way. “Settlements were few and far between in those eariy days, and it was a long, lonely trek. The Klondike gold rush had not begun, and it was not the sort of country that the ordinary individual would visit as a holiday resort. A TEAM OF SIXTEEN DOGS.

“I carried flour, bacon, beans and coffee. Of course, I had my rifle and aminuniition. The dogs were fed once a day with smoked salmon. An average load for a sleigh would be between 3501 b. and 4001 b.

“Among the Indians I learned to drive a team of 16 dogs, which I harnessed fanwise, Indian fashion. This arrangement permitted each dog to be harnessed directly to the sleigh, and it had to pull its full weight. “Eight dogs constituted the average teams of the old ‘sour-dough miners on the Klondike fields. The animals were harnessed in couples, one in front of the other.

“Usually these dogs are referred to as ‘huskies.’ The real huskies, however, are the dogs used lot lighter work, while the heaviet work is done by malahuts, who bear the same relation to the huskies that the Clydesdales do to the light draught horse.” The doctor explained that the huskies are a cross between , the wolves and the collies that the Scottish employees of the Hudson Bay Company took from Scotland wi i them. They are apt to be treacherous, and were not the sort of d°3 to pet after a day’s work. CLOSE TOUCH WITH THE ESKIMOS.

“I came into close touch with the Eskimos during my wanderings,” the doctor continued. “I havei stayed in their igloos —snow houses and felt as snug as we are at an .ordinary fire, although it was below

zero outside. When they retire to ,bed the entire family snuggles into one large family sleeping bag, minus their clothes. They huddle together for warmth. Although the condition would make a modern city health officer speechless at the fashion in which health laws are ignored by the nonehalent Eskimo, they are as happy as they are dirty. , “After 10 years of roving life my missionary friend succeeded in .his quest and found me. He had learned from a hint here and there that the Dogrib Indians ha'd a white boy living with them. Having heard of my parent’s tragic fate he surmised that I was that boy. Ultimately he tracked me down. I can never ‘forget what he has done for me. It seems strange to look across the bridge of years and picture that white baby that grew to boyhood in such strange surroundings, living a nomadic life with savages and speaking the Indian and Eskimo tongues.

“Australia will be my home in future. All the .same, there are joyous experiences for the boy or man born way \up there near the Arctic" circle that are outside the ken of folks who know naught but sunny lands.”