Audubon County journal. (Exira, Iowa) 1884-1993, 1909-08-19
|ODD ARCTIC PEOPLE
They Are Not the Black Haired
Eskimos.
Hint That Mystery OF Sir John Frank
Inns Missing Men, or of Vanished
lceIandic Colony May Soon
Be Solved.

Ia friend who lives here, hints at a
possible unraveling either of the mys,
terry which for more than CO years
has enveloped the fate of Sir John
/ Franklin's two ships companies or OF
the greater mystery concerning col
ionies of Icelanders who long ago mi
grated to Greenland and then disap.
peared.
Stefansson's letter, dated Barrow,
Alaska, Feb 12," and postmarked
Nome, Alaska, April s." in transit
says:
Here I am. further west than you
probably expected me to go in win.
ter. This is whaling station, the
most northerly one in America, the
most easterly one of those whose
egress is by the Pacific ocean. There
is here also the most northerly post.
office under American control and II
has two outgoing reindeer mails in
winter, November / and February 15,
as we'll as ship mail in July or Au.
gust am here to write letters and
reports to the museum.
my winter camp is as planned on
the lower Colville river. left it about
the time the sun went away and have
since wandered as far west as Vain.
wright inlet, about 10 miles southwest
of Point Barrow and 300 from our
winter camp, stopping at every Eski,
mo settlement, an unpleasant thing in
many cases, for the habits and dis.
eases of civilization are everywhere
evident; unhealthy people crowded
into unventilated and uncomfortable
houses, a complete contrast to what II
was 20 years ago here, am told, and
to what it still is to the eastward,
where every house, no matter how
crowded, is always warm and well
ventilated.
Eat Point Barrow and west of there
80 per cent. Of the people have aban-
doned the warm, semi-excavated house
with it's door in the floor, the adyan-
tages of which are we'll known to you,
for f1imsy overground structures imi.
tating white mems houses. The walls
of these are so thin that even were
they alright, as they often are every
nearly), enough cold comes in by con-
duction through the boards to form
hoarfrost here and there and ice in
the corners and under the beds. In
stead of door and a ventilating
chimney always open, these houses
have no ventilator, the door is hastily
closed whenever opened and every
crack is filled with rag, tallow or
chewing gum.
ga doctor who has been at Barrow
seven years, since 1s96-he has had
vacations-tells me that the death
rate fro tuberculosis has more than
doubled in ten years, the period Of
the change (under missionary and
other inf1uences) from the insanitary,
filthy native houses to the tidy, mod
ern' damp cockleshells that are MUIR
dering the people.
This has been a depression. It
would take many pages of print to
show up thoroughly the effects of civ
'ilization at Point Barrow and west
of it.
"In three or four days shall start
east for the Colville and spend
month or two there at least. Many Of
the people there had never seen
white man when we arrived, but they
have associated for many years with
Eskimos who are Christians, etc., and
their influence has been marked They
are, therefore, from my point Of view
sophisticated.
"In October last we divided our
party in two sections Dr. Anderson.
with an Eskimo family, went into the
mountains south of Barter island,
about rs miles southeast from Flax
man island and 1875 from my camp.
. My party consisted of a man.
wife, baby and one man besides.
DR.. Anderson was to try to make a
living on mountain sheep, river fish
and ptarmigan. Our hope was deer.
caribou. of which we got Is, not near
ly enough, though more than any Es-
kimo hunter Of the Colville country.
Gas heretofore, the plan is to spend
next winter good way to the east
ward. 500 or 600 miles as one travels
it east of the Mackenzie or 800 to 900
east of the Colville near the mouth Of
the Coppermine river or on Victoria
land Some Eskimos who saw some
of these people last year tell me that
in party of 20 they saw one middle
aged man and one woman of about 1s
who had hair as light as mine is and
several whose hair was not black.
Now you know pure blooded Eskimo
Is as black-haired and stiff-haired az
any Japanese. With the disappear.
ance of Franklin's two ships COM
panies in that neighborhood and with
the lost Icelandic colonies of Green
land in mind the problem has its in
teresting features