Polk County news-gazette. (Benton, Tenn.) 190?-191?, 1910-12-08


move nowadays that u
u 4 less one stops to ref1et
:: !: !: !: !. :: !: +.
WA a bit there seems not
wa ing unusual in the fac
III IA that Harry Whitney, th
AW New Haven sportsman
II 81 should have gone huntin
to the place which nc
many years ago marked the northern
host limit of polar exploration. Fo
hearty a year he lived by choice a
most in the shadow of that Cape So
btne, where the men of the Greel
expedition starved to death in 1885
Many times he passed on his exped
ton after game the wreck of tn
steamship Polari of the Hall expedi
ton OF 1871.
The adventures Mr. Whitney hat
as a sportsman in this far nortl
where men before him had met dealt
as explorers he has set down in his
book, Hunting With the Eskimos,
which has just been published, says &
writer in the Montreal Herald
Though the author seems to consider
himself primarily a sportsman and
the love of hunting strange game
was what kept him through all the
Arctic night living with the Eskimos
and as an Eskimo, his book is inter
esting not as sportsman's tale, but
as a record of crowded adventure
and as portrayal of Eskimo types.
Since Mr. Whitney went as far
north as Etah with the Peary expedi-
ton of 1908 and returned to civiliza-
ton on the Peary relief ship Jeanne
after having been the first white man
to greet the returning pole finder up
under the shadow of the north. his
book comes as a sort OF epilogue to
Peary's narrative of his achievement.
AS an amateur Arctic explorer this
New Haven sportsman has at least
one valuable qualification, the gift of
direct and simple narrative.
In company with two other sports
men the author went north on the
Peary expeditions tender Erik, which
followed the Roosevelt on it's last and
successful dash through the ice fields.
His intention and that of his friends
was merely to make the voyage to
Etah on the Greenland coast, get
little incidental hunting and then to
return to the world when the Erik put
back and the Roosevelt continued on
her way northward to Cape Sheridan.
Captivated by the Arctic.
But once at Etah, away down under
the foot of the mountains with the
Greenland ice cap sparkling from the
summit of the range, Whitney caught
the fever OF the north. Though he
had not come prepared to isolate him
self for year and endure the hard
ships of the Arctic night, Whitney
preached his determination to stick 1t
out with the Eskimos at Etah to Com
mander Peary before the Roosevelt
left for the north on August IS, and
Peary made him an allowance of
return Of the expeditions tender in
the following August should offer
passage home.
So it was that with a shack built
for him by the carpenter and the bos'n
of the Erik at Etah and the two mem
bers of the Roosevelts crew left to
guard a cache of provisions at An
nootok, forty miles away, as his sole
white companions in the land of sill
ence, Mr.. Whitney saw the Erik steam
away for the south on August FL.
Then he realized that he was ma
rooned in the most desolate region of
the earth, among race who spoke
strange tongue. There was no escape
for nearly year"
Even the Eskimo companions left to
the sportsman we're not many. Peary
had taken the pick of the tribe north
with him on the Roosevelt, men, wom-
en- and children, and the Eskimos
who remained began early the grilling
task of storing the community larder
against descending night. Whitney
threw his lot In with them absolutely.
Lived the Life Of an Eskimo.
He straightway became an Eskimo
in his mode of life as far as he could,
and before he got away from the ice
bound coast of Smith Sound, Whitney
had reason to count among his best
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 Els.
KINDS feverishly active in the task of
laying up a store against the winter. /
Whitney had either to remain alone
n his board and packing box shack