The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1909-05-13
sxILes OF THE NORTH.
White Men Along Cumberland Sound
Where News Is Two Years Old.

"Hite wen Aiong cumberland SOUND
Where News Is Two Years Old.
Probably the last white man to heal
of the death of Pope Leo will be the
Rev. James Peck, an Anglican mis-
sionary laboring among the Esquimaus
in Cumberland Sound, an inlet on the
vast unexplored area north of Hudson
Bay. He did not learn of the death o.,
queen Victoria for eighteen month;
after its occurrence, when a storm
tossed whaler entered the region and
impaired to him the news in July
1907. This devoted cleric has estab
lished himself in that far-off country
in order to bring to the pagan Esqui
maus the blessings of the Christian
faith; but the extreme to which mar
VIII go in the pursuit of wealth are
Illustrated by the fact that there are
two whaling stations in the same re
gion. the principals of which, a Ger
man and a Scotchman, have been
thirty and twenty-seven years there
respectively, without once leaving.
Cumberland Sound is $50 miles
the most desolate, cherries regions
in the world. Two whaling stations
are established there, at Kekkerton
and Blackhead. and the fishing is done
by the Esquimaus. These. through
Intercourse with civilized men and the
use of civilized weapons, have quite
lost their native art of killing the levi
athans with the primitive harpoons of
bone and flint which their ancestors
hurled with stout arms from sealskin
Kayaks, firing out the great creatures
by inflated skin buoys attached tc
ropes of walrus hide.
Instead, the Esquimaus of to-day
pursue the hunt after the civilized
tashio1-in stout wooden boats. with
steel harpoons and lines of hemp
ard the industry pays chiefly because
such labor is so cheap, being paid for
In goods and necessaries of life. Az
has been the experience with aborig
iral races elsewhere, the Esquimau
can no longer return to his primitive
condition of existence. He would Ger.
tainly starve If he did, and, therefore
he must rely on the white man, to
whom he becomes a dependent-a
slave, indeed. in all but the name.
At Kekkerton the factor is Mr..
Mulch, a Scotchman, who for twenty.
seven years has remained welded 10
his solitary existence. The Blackhead
station is controlled by Mr.. Sheridan,
a German, who has been thirty years
there. Both have anna Ised considera.
BILE wealth, but evince no inclination
to return to the outer world, with all
the narvels of science and art which
have marked the advancement of the
last generation. Every two years
whaling steamer from Scotland visits
them, bringing supplies for them and
their EsQuimau followers and remov.
ing the stocks of whale oil, whalebone,
hides. ivory and other articles of trade
accumulated in the meantime.
With these self-exiled settlers
money has no meaning. Everything
done by barter; every service paid
for with fragment of iron or pound
Of biscuit. The profits of the venture
so 10 the credit OF their accounts In
Aberdeen, where the products are
marketed, and, possibly, when beyond
their labor these two recluses may
make their way beck to civilization
to mourn the lost advantages they are
now too cid to enjoy
They live "a frame houses, the only
ones besides the clergyman's in that
n"rthern land. They fare on canned
foods, eked out with venison from the
musk OK of the Interior or steak from
the whales captured. a by no means
unappetizing dish. But they are not
a"erse to the raw seal, bear and wal.
rus which Esquimaus affect for NO
nan can maitain his strength more
. an a season or two in that latitude
" thout consuming large quantities OF
raw fat meat.-Montreal Star.