Tensas gazette. [volume] (St. Joseph, La.) 1886-current, 1910-12-23

at AunOOlOh OF 10 JOIN tne EShluloo
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 outfitted
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 a 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. Whitney's feet were frozen re-
peatedly. his face cracked and frosted
and the hours he spent in his sleeping
bag of heavy skins were OF misery
only a 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
shade of CHASTITY indefinable greenish
yellow.
Shifting shadows fit among NOV
ing ice masses like wraiths of depart
ed. spirits. A deathlike silence pre-
walls, to. be broken only by the start
ling and. unexpected cracking OF a
glacier with a :soInd of mighty thun-
derclap or the smashing together OF
great ice foes with a report like
heavy cannon.
The author had many occasions TO
witness the peculiar neurotic reac-
ton caused by the darkness and the
silence upon his Eskimo companions.
Time and again one of them went
''problokto," that is sort of insane
frenzy would seize an individual
cause him to strip of his clothes and
run naked over the ice and snow un
til he was captured and overpowered
| by his companions. The fits came on
without warning, were violent and
left the victim. weak and depressed
| for hours after
The terror of these sudden gusts ol
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 sickly moon
light to see some naked. raving figure
skimming over the white snow field
shrieking TO the stars.
All the world seemed fairy. The
silence, the Pickering of the aurora
the showers: of meteors which fire
| uuentiy streaked the sky like fire
| flakes. from flights or rockets, these
we're the ycdhdiuons which fosteret
] 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 liv'
in this desolate land.
| Eskimo Optimism.
! "EskimQs are -optimists," he says
i "Pessimists have no place in the
Arctic or any other far wilderness
I for that matter, where today's dan
gers and difficulties are real and suf
ficient unto themselves. Doing hi
hest with today and providing SO fa
as circumstances will permit for th'
future, The Eskimo gives no othe
thought to- tomorrow than buoyan
reliance that it will take care of IL
seh.ajust as. yesterday did.
"a pessimist who constantly wor
ries about the morrow would posi-
tiyely hypnotic himself to death ii
these lands in very short time. Pes
simism has been the real cause o
nane casualties among Arctic ez
'piorers.-s
| The .bli:zards came continually t
compficate the life that the whit
stranger had to lead during the dark
ness. Some OF the most vivid pas
sages in his book are those which de
l.pict the raging of the storms whicl
swept down from the north, carrying
snow as hard as shot, destroying an
obliterating everything in their pas
sage.
For days on end Whitney did no
dare to leave his shack at Annooto
to go fifty yards TO the nearest iglo
because Of the binding fury of th
.tempest. He would have been los
a dozen steps beyond his own tunne
entrance. Yet so pressing is the nee
of food among the Eskimos that be
tween the ragings. of the storms the
: made venturesome excursions afte
meat and Whitney accompanied ther
on many of these hunts.
| One occasion when a party Of whic