Omaha daily bee., 1910-03-27
THREE YEARS IN THE ARCTIC
Knue Rasmussen's Plans for His Long
Exile.
WILL VISIT UNKNOWN LANDS
chief Purpose is 60 study the EaLiruo,
OF whom Hls Mother was One,
10 Learn, ~ Possible, where
They Originated.

Knud Rasmussen. the Danish explorer
and one-time partisan Of DR.. Cook. has an
nounced his program for a three years
exile in the barren lands within the Artio
circle which he shall devote 10 the study
Of his ancestors. Rasmussen is perhaps
the only educated white man who needs
go 20 Eskimo land 70 learn something
about his forebears. His mother was a fun
blooded Eskimo and not only Is Rasmussen
proud Of It. but he feels that by his kim
ship with the Eskimo his mission is that
Of adding to the worlds knowledge of
the scattered nosthern peoples.
According 10 ehe announcement which
Rasmussen has made through the current
number OF the Journal OF the Royal Geo
graphical society OF London. the Danish
Ethnographical expedition to the Central
Eskfmos, which he is to head and which is
to receive the support Of the Danish gov
eminent. Will leave Copenhagen some time
during the summer Of 1911 in a ship OF the
type of Gjoa. which threaded a northwest
passage in Amundsen's expedition several
years ago. Besides the crew tbs ship wiz
carry geologist and a physician. who VIII
also be an expert in botany and zoology.
Provision Will also be made to have ships
officers who are able to do eartographical
and meteorological work, for n is Ras-
musseu's plan to strike into fields north
OF the continent Of America, which have
either never been visited or only casually
explored.
The great aim Of the Danish-ESkimo
explorer and scientist Is to trace the
migration Of the Greenland Eskimo from
their supposed original home somewhere
g,a -, af ka
continent Heretofore scientists who have
made studies of the Eskimo have always
gone just 80 far in their researches into
the history and ethnology Of the strange
nomads OF the north and then have found
themselves up against a blank wall Of
mystery-the mystery OF the peoples origin.
The Greenland Eskimo, especially those
In the Smith Sound region, from which
Peary and Cook drew their aides in polar
work, seem TO be particularly barren Of
folk tales or Of tradition which might
throw light upon their origin. Ethnologists
who have visited the frozen regions have
guessed that there was some bond be
tween the Eskimos Of Alaska and those Of
Greenland. but theirs has been a guess un-
supported by evidence. Rasmussen hopes to
find such evidence and to fix. II he can. the
original starting point Of all the Eskimo
migrations.
In pursuance of this scheme he intends
to drive his ship through Hudson strait
after having first made q call at Danish
West Greenland for sledges and fur sup
plies. By way Of Fox Basin ne plans to
find a winter quarters in the Fury ana
Hecla STRATA which separate Melville
peninsula from Cockburn Land at about
the eighty fifth parallel Of longitude
With his base here he plans to spend the
first winter out in sledge journeys In and
around the northwestern shoulder OF Baffin
Land.
"The inhabitants Of northwestern Baffin
Land are very little known" says Ras-
mussen. They have never been subjected
| to a thorough ethnographical study. The
Baffinlanders found and studied by ~Frans
Boas in the Cumberland sound toward the
southeast live so far from the inhabitants
OF northwestern Raffln Land and under
such widely different conditions Of life
| that 1t Is impossible to make any com
/ parison between the two groups, Upon
the whole the Eskimos in the northwest
ern Baffln Land are among the most uIa-
\ known of the Eskimo people, though this
! district must naturally be locked upon as
the very thoroughfare from the American
/ continent to Greenland"
After the first winter in the Arctic Ras-
mussen plans to break from the Ice as
soon as spring comes and go south in the
Chesterfield inlet country. This long,
| slender finger of salt water that points
westward from Hudson bay at about fifty
eight latitude into a cluster Of lakes In
the barren grounds win be the theater for
Rasmussen's activity during the following
| fall and winter. Here is the country where
the Eskimo and the Indian types, known
generically as the Mountaineer Indians.
meet along a ragged and hotly contested
frontier The Barren Grounds Esklmos
are as little known as the Bafhnlanders
except TO the fugitive traders who risk
their ships in the Hudson bay ice during
the brief summer months OF free water.
BY sledge parties Rasmussen hopes 10 find
these Barren Land tribes and by barter
to procure from them chronological speci-
mems which later he win correlate with
those obtained from other tribes.
The rest Of Rasmussens exile Will be
spent, according 10 hts plans, IN western
trips through the maze Of islands that
fringe the northern rim Of the continent
as far as Coronation gulf, which lies be-
tween the n0th and n5th parallels. just
above the Arctic circle. This is a country
by white men, save on such expeditions
of discovery as that planned by Rasmussen.
How many Eslrimos or what tribes OF the
nomads live within the stretch from Cor
onation gulf 10 Melville peninsula nobody
knows. Here is an entirely new field open
TO the scieutist Rasmussen expects that
he will live with some Of these Eskimos
almost constantly, taking sledge trips with
them into the interior barren lands and
studying their problems of life and tribal
communism
Rasmussen believes that the seat Of
Eskimo culture lies somewhere in the bar
rem grounds between the Chesterfield Inlet
country and Coronation gulf, and this vast
tract represents the original home OF the
peoples OF the north. He says that the
fishing methods OF the inland Eskimo have
been modified and fitted 70 tideWater con-
ditions and have become the common meth