The Nome nugget., 1902-01-01
Pen Picture of Whale Hunt at Point
 Barrow.
flow the Huge Sea Mammals Are Captured GraphcaI!, Portrayed By Capt. Slem--Ihe Native Hunters and Their Daring and Dexterity---inroads Made By
 the lniquitous Whisky Traffic.

In the early. eighties the twO'V1lfageS ysituated in the neighborhood of Point Barrow, used to fit and man jointly every spring some forty odd canoes for ifloe whaling; and the natives attended strictly and indnstriously to the catch- ing of whales during the two months when these mammals would pass by this point in incredible numbers, migrating to the north. Their annual .. catch of whaleboRe would average 20,- 1000, pounds representing in those days about $lOO,000. Prosperous and inde- ,pendentagain the natives had nearly fully recovered from the .calamitous sbane of the unrestricted whisky traffic ,thev had lain under flor number of years.
 The United States revenue cutters ihad effectively stopped some years previous .,his nekirious trade, but the ,past kept hanging over the natives like "a nightmare. Numerous pitiful in- .cidents and tales of the years of con etinuOus debauch and consequent ~starvatiOn. sickness ;!sinD death were rtopics of constant discussions between .them. A little whisky kept dribbling 'in steadily, mostly carried up north 'by the enterprising Cape Prince of Wales native trader who smuggled it across Bering straits in this big canes from Siberia, where. it was still knded in I ;,ia ly ho A opin whalers and traders. There was not enough of it, however, to do any harm, sand right through the Point Barrow natives were living in peace, and had full and plenty, literally patronizing the store and trading post, which had lbeen lately re-established among them. This institution was proving itself .well-paying institution, and the trader was waxing prosperous in the him-sur- rounding general prosperity; when on .A sudden there came change.
 .h miner spending a lonely winter on fthe waters of the upper Yukon had -started in to distl himself some 'Ashootch," and prying native had watched him and got on to the secret and art of making the strong water of the white man. He forthwith had inn parted his knowledge to his cousins. 1t soon spread further, and not many years later distilleries were kept going day and night in every native igloo over the whole length and breadth of the country. Matters were all turned atopsy.turvy again in this wise at Point Barrow. Whaling was more and more neglected, and the output of whale -bone fell off again to- nearly nothing.
 The trader saw ruin ahead. He tried sat firstto stop it by friendly means and tthen by destroying the distilleries as soon as erected, but the evil had taken root too quickly and too deeply, and the oil ~can distilleries were easily re- constructed. Hating to abandon his post, he grew up to the emergency, and, baing resouroeful, he turned the apparently disastrous conditions into advantage by making out of his trading post a whaling staJlon. He selected and gathered, around him the natives. the least influenced by the liquor habit, settled them in houses close to his post, maintained and carried them through sthe winter, bought up native whaling .paraphernalia and supplemented these with the hest bomb guns, darLing guns .and, bomb -lances procurable, told them of in canoe crews and sent them out -on the ice in the spring to whale for him. 1t.waS. remarkable how easily 1t twas all done, how quickly the natives fell in with this new state of affairs .and how willingly and faithfully they swOrked and whaied for him every year. The whaling statlon proved itself from the start bigger success than .bhe trading post had ever been.
 About the middle of April, when with strong northeast wind water leads will open out off shore, we com TOW. All natives join together to cut
 a good wide sled road over the ice foot,
 which extends all the way from five to
 fifteen miles out from the land in diff
 ferent years and which often consists
 of immense molintain-like ridges @thrown and piled UP by the pressure of thousands of miles of ice during the stormy winter. Then canoes, whaling and camp gear are moved out to the svater's edge, and the natives prepare to stay there permanently and con >finuOusly Tor the next two months,
 waiting and watching, day in and day ,Outs in ali kinds Of weather, tor the sight chance to catch whale. It frequently happens that strip of the lice foot will tear loose and that canoe
 and camp will be carried away with it 80 the north. Then there arises oc- cssion and necessity for hard and quick - ks.r <l