Pullman herald. [volume] (Pullman, W.T. [Wash.]) 1888-1989, 1909-10-08
ESKIMOS START UTOPIA
Old Doctor Organizes Colony Where
All Share Alike

Home-bound arctic whaling ships
will carry south TINS fall the story
of one of the strangest Utopias ever
dreamed of. The founder of this
colony is DR.. John B. briggs, form
erly Episcopal missionary here. The
colonists are all Eskimos and the
soil occupied is miles above the arc
tic circle, where the production of
cereals or even the hardest vege-
tables is an impossibility
In a barren little valley ten miles
= above Cape Lisburne and ninety miles
from the nearest white man, and
nearly as far from the nearest Es-
, kimo settlement, this Utopian dream
of kindly old man is shaping itself
into something tangible and real.
AS the last ships passed by the whal-
ers saw new houses where no one
had ever dared to build before. On
the bleak shore there were men and
women and children and dogs and all
that indicates life in the Arctic world
Behind the village rose blush gray
sleeps of the last of the Rockies,
which in the vicinity of their Arctic
terminus loom up precipitiously
above the sea, leaving only here and
there a little shelf of beach upon
which houses may be built or boats
landed. Trees there are none and
the only vegetable worth mention
ing is moss.
Twenty years ago John B. briggs
came to the Arctic. He had practic-
ed medicine for years prior to COM
ing north. Although DR.. briggs is
not yet 60, he has all the appearance
of man much older. During the
score of years that he spent here
as missionary DR.. briggs came to
love his dusky people. Their sin
cerety, their devotion to each other
and their honesty appealed to him.
Lived Like an Eskimo
DR.. briggs saw human natures
change in many ways and the
changes panied him. He longed to
get his people away from the new
conditions that were changing them
into imitation white men. Year by
year he remained. He cured the
sick; he taught school, and he
preached all that he thought was
necessary. Unlike many more de-
hA
er. He never seemed to think of
making a stake" as they called
cheating the natives.
In time DR.. briggs came to dress
like an Eskimo, and to eat Eskimo
fare quite as readily as any other
| fare. He would not place himself
above the natives, so he became one
of them. He learned the myths and
folklore of the race and it's child
like imagery pleased him.
Last year the Episcopal authori-
ties removed DR.. briggs and placed
another man in charge. But the pro-
cess of adaptation to a savage en-
vironment had gone farther than
might be imagined. Down in the
states DR.. briggs was a man with
out a country old friends and COM
panions who were not gone were
changed. Coming from the lap of
simple society, civilized life jar
red him. So he spent the year writ
| ing a book and dreaming of an Es-
kimo Utopia in which he and his
in which the pri mitive kindness
of the old days could flourish once
again.
With the opening of northern navi-
cation this summer, DR.. briggs was
again on his way to the Arctic. He
had with him lumber and tools and
provisions, all that the scanty saw
ings of many years could afford. AT
Point Hope he came ashore and laid
his communistic plans before his peo-
pie. Sixty of them signified their |
willingness to join him. Owing to
the incessant gales that sweep around
Cape Lisburne and the perpendicular
rock walls that there fringe the |
shore for many miles, the country |
is inhabited. The Eskimos have al |
ways had a superstitious dread of the |
place, but their faith in their old
doctor as strong enough to over
come this.
The Eskimos are naturally COM
munists. The colonists will not be
starved out. Off to sea is the finest
whaling ground in the Arctic. Among
the ice foes seals abound, while polar
bears are very numerous through |
the long winter. On the land The
white fox, the lynx and the ermine
are everywhere; and there are Carl
bou back in the interior that scarcely |
knou tho faar Of man EUarv ourn- |