Emmons County record. [volume] (Williamsport, D.T. [i.e. N.D.]) 1884-current, 1910-12-08

friends the simple minded folk who
pass as savages.
The beginning of the Arctic night
found Whitney and the Eskimo co
munity all settled In Annootok. which
is the northernmost settlement of the
Arctic highlanders The man who had
come TO the country to hunt speedily
discovered that necessity forced him
to do little else.
The descending night found the Es
kimos feverishly active in the task OF
laying up a store against the winter
Whitney had either to remain alone
In his board and packing box shack
at Annootok or to joti, the Eskimos
in perilous expeditions over the ice on
foot up and down the coast Meat
was the quest, meat which would yield
light and fire and sustenance during
the long months of darkness
Some of the women had QUILTED
the white stranger among them with
complete suit of furs, and though he
donned them early in October for
weeks and months thereafter he was
at hand grips with the cold hour upon
hour. The author said that during the
course OF q bear hunt In which he
Joined with the Eskimos and which
carried the sledge party far north into
Kane Basin, his thermometer. which
was only designed TO register fifty de-
grees below zero. dropped to that
point and stayed there for days on
end Whitneys feet were frozen re-
peatedly. his face cracked and frosted
and the hours he spent in his sleeping
bag of heavy skins We're of misery
only shade less acute than when he
was exposed to the cutting blasts on
the march
The Awful Arctic Night.
OF the darkness Whitney writes
this in his book:
No words can adequately describe
the awful pail OF the Arctic night. 1t
is unreal and terrible. Even the
moonlight is unnatural, casting upon
the snow and ice, the wind swept
rocks, and the people themselves a
shade of CHASTITY indefnable greenish
yellow
Shifting shadows fit among NOV
ing ice masses like wraiths of depart
ed spirits. A deathlike silence pre-
wallis, to be broken only by the start
ling and unexpected cracking OF
glacier with sound of mighty thun-
derclap or the smashing together OF
great ice foes with report like
heavy cannon.
The author had many occasions to
witness the peculiar neurotic reac-
4 ton caused by the darkness and the
silence upon his Eskimo companions.
Time and again one OF them went
"problokto," that is a sort of insane
| frenzy would seize an individual.
cause him TO strip off his clothes and
run naked over the ice and snow I'M
til he was captured and oyerpowered
by his companions. The fits came on
without warning. We're violent and
left the victim weak and depressed
for hours after
The terror of these sudden gusts or
madness sank in upon the marooned
white hunter He would be called out
/ OF his sleeping bag by cries from the
igloos. rush out into the slckly moon.
light to see some naked. raving figure
skimmtng over the white snow field
shrieking to the stars
All the world seemed fairy. The
silence, the Pickering II the aurora,
| the showers of meteors which fire
| quently streaked the sky like fire
4 flakes from flights or rockets, these
were the conditions which fostered
madness. Yet In picturing the terror
of the long night Whitney takes oc-
casion to marvel at the tremendous
optimism of the little people who live
In this desolate land
Eskimo Optimism.
"F,skimos are optimists, he SAYS
"Pessimists have no place In the
! Arctic or any other far Wilderness
for that matter. whore todays dan.
1 gers and difficulties are real and suf
/ ficient unto themselves. Doing his
best with today and providing so far
as circumstances will permit for the
| future the Eskimo gives no other
thought to tomorrow than buoyant
reliance that II will take care of II.
| self Just as yesterday did
-