BACK FROM ARCTIC.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXIII, 9 April 1926, Page 9

BACK FROM ARCTIC.

CAPTAIN WILKINS’S THRILLING STORY.

By Cablo—Press Association —Copyright, Australian and N.Z. Cablo Association.

VANCOUVER, April 7. Captain Wilkins’s story of tho farthest north of Alaska flight reads like a novel.

On leaving Fairbanks, on Wednesday, a week ago, tho motor worked liko a diann. Within live hours the flyers found themselves over the village of Point Barrow. “Tilings were then going so well with us,” continued Captain Wilkins, “we decided to keep on going north. During the next three hours we accomplished 75 miles seaward into that great unknown. We readied /3 degrees 30 minutes north. Flying at 7000 feet -elevation, the visibility was good,' and from that height we could see many miles in every direction. “Leaving Barrow, wo crossed a broad expanse of fairly Smooth ice, and then traversed a‘ rough, hummocky area; that stretched as far as the’ ' eye" could reach, in every direction, broken by leads of open ’water on all sides. V r e saw no evidence of land. The return was delayed by bad weather.

PIERCING THE MYSTERIES OF THE ARCTIC. “ ALASKAN’S ” THRILLING ' FLIGHT. By Cable —Press Association —Copyriebt. Sydney "Sun” Service. (Received April 9, 12.20 a.m.) VANCOUVER, April 7. For two days following Captain Wilkins’s tow into the Arctic, a ■ blizzard swept the coast line east and west of Barrow. Monday morning opened clear. Belson started the motor and taxied up and down tho icefield, but was tinable to rise owing to drifted snow, which the Esquimaux cleared, and tho following day the “Alasxan commenced the flight. Everything went well until they passed Wiseman, "'lien head winds took them off their coui'se, and obliged the landing at Circle City. Describing the slide down tho hill from Crest Endacotts towards the Arctic, Captain Wilkins said they encountered the most rugged scenery ever witnessed—knife edge and saw tooth ranges piled one after another for undetermined miles; each serrated horizon more terrible than the one behind. Finally they came out into the foothills, and frozen white tundra ahead, as far-reaching as the eye could see. Flying faster than they figured, they crossed the coastline about fifteen miles cast of Barrow, and the ice was below them before they realised it. Tho results "show that they were flying one hundred miles hourly. They continued seaward for seventy-five minutes, and it was 2J hours after that they passed Barrow. The position readied northward was 125 miles beyond Barrow. Beyond that lie could see seventy-five miles over ice hummocks and sea lanes. This was at least one hundred miles further than any human being had ever been before. They penetrated beyond the' Alaskan coast.