Adventure Magazine Cover — page 188: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

182 1. What routing would you advise us to take, so that we would be in a country where there is an abundance of polars, walrus and seal, also fox and other smaller game? 2. ‘Will there be any danger of being crushed by ice when we become frozen in for the Winter, if we should decide to do so? The intention of the party is to take along provisions and supplies, and spend one close season in the Arctic region. 3. Would it be necessary to proceed far from the location of our cruiser to find game? 4, What means of travel or transportation would you advise, if necessary to go overland, or over ice, when Jooking for game? 5. Would we be able to find timber which we could utilize for fires, so as to enable us to heat up the cruiser with wood stoves, during the time we were lying frozen ine We would not be able to use oil for this purpose, as we would find it necesaary to conserve the oil supply for the return trip. 6. What restrictions are there on the big game of the Arctic regions, and what duty must one pay to bring any pelts or hides into the States when we should return, providing, of course, that we shouid be lucky enough to get some game? 7. When would be the best time to start, so that we could get up into the regions, and find a good location before the freezing started? 8. Will it be possible to use sleds for transporta- tion purposes which are propelled by motors and aeroplane propellers, or would we find the surface of the ice and snow too rough for this means of transport?’—R. O. Stoxor, Kiowa, Oklahoma. Answer, by Mr. Solomons:—Your letter is an oasis in a desert of piffling inquiries which are mainly directed to the problem of “‘getting a job” or “‘strik- ing it rich” in Alaska. They get very monotonous. My field covers really the Arctic regions adjacent to Alaska, so far as topography goes. However, my suggestions as to equipment and the like will apply pretty well to any part of our northern coasts, as I keep fairly well informed. I have not personally lived in the region about Labrador and Greenland. My belief is that the Alaska Arctic will suit your purposes far better than the Labrador-Greenland side. Settlements are nearer; sois fuel; and I believe game to be equally abundant if not more so. I assume you are now provided with maps. If not, immediately obtain the Government maps and the Coast and Geodetic Survey maps of Arctic Alaska. By the former I mean, of course, those of the Department of the Interior. 1. Partly answered above—the northwest Alask- an coast, approached on the Pacific side from San Francisco, or, better, from Seattle as the port of final supply, thence through Unimak Pass to Nome, where you would call for mail and obtain final sup- se s of certain commodities and stock up on oil. ome imports a lot of it cheap for use on its numer- eus dredgers, it being imported in tankers. Thence through Bering Sea, stopping if you wish at Wales (Cape Prince of Wales) and taking on a few Eskimo hunters and helpers (or you could take these on farther up) who are educated and very capable. I sesh 6 if you wish, give you some letters to old native friends of mine in Kotzebue Sound, your next and last ports of call, who would give you cor- dially friendly assistance in dealing with natives. The latter are perfectly peaceable, and the finest people in the world, but they are shrewd and wary of Adventure white voyagers, having had inter < experience with the whalers. I would advise going on to Point Barrow and rounding it to some distance along the northerly | shore if the season was a propitious one, leaving time to return to some point in‘the vicinity of Cape Lis- burne or the mouth of the Noatak River for your Winter quarters. You would get all the bear, walrus and seal as well as fox and other fur-bearers you wished, with a good chance at caribou. 2. Your boat will be perfectly safe in any of the lagoons of sufficient depth for safe anchorage. You will merely have to keep out of the direct channel from the sea to the tide-water limit of the river emptying into the lagoon. You could no doubt Winter at the mouth of the Colville, beyond Point Barrow, but your range of game would be less, fuel distant and impracticable to obtain, and you would be taking a chance on getting out as it sometimes happens that a whole Summer passes without a clear way around Barrow. . South of that point, however, you would be perfectly safe ‘and could carry out your purposes. At Lisburne you could get all the coal you wanted, gratis, and go on a little distance to an appropriate anchorage and freeze in. This. would be but a short distance. You could winter at Hotham~ Inlet or Keewalik, at both of which places are white min- ing and missionary settlements, but here the game would not be so plentiful. 3. With reference to the proximity of game to your cruiser, you know that seasonal variations make this question a difficult one. You could un- doubtedly Winter with safety to your boat in several places covering a thousand miles of coast line— I mean at any point you might select along such an optional limit—assuming your craft does not draw more than the usual amount of water for a vessel of its size. And in the vicinity of that place you would find seal, walrus and bear, and also narwhals (the “white whales” out of which the Eskimos make soles for their mucklucks and cover their large skin boats— “oomiaks’”’). But for fur the section of the line southward of the Point would obviously be the best, for the timber is there found fairly near salt water. Expeditions after game, especially land game, would have to be made anyhow, but you need not fear that your anchorage must necessarily be remote from your sport. Such is emphatically ot the case. 4. For transport you would want dogs, sleds and canoes. I would advise, by all means, picking up these in Nome or Kotzebue Sound, but you ought to take some light Eastern-made canoes of the Peter- boro type, and have them sheathed, on the cutwater especially, with copper. A few kayaks and an oomiak will be mighty handy in the ice in hunting, as they are much lighter than any wooden craft and this is highly desirable in getting seal, walrus and polar bears. The natives use a sled and a kayak or bidarka (two-holed kayak) in floe-ice hunting in the Fall and Spring. Across the “Janes” and open spaces they paddle with the sled forward of them, laid across the kayak. On the ice they reverse things. Thus they bid defiance to drift, breaking away of sections of floe-ice, and the like hazards. No satisfactory i ice hunting can be done in any other way except in the dead of Winter at the time of greatest solidity of the ice zone offshore. But remember that on extended -ice journeys there is no safe season. Take the word of one who “comichbooks