The New era-leader. (Wagner, Charles Mix County, S.D.) 1911-1912, 1911-03-24

~ 1NAihootoh VI " JOlu nv LShllloS
in perilous expeditions owe 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
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:
mo 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 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 sound 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 vent
'problokto,' that is a 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 of
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.
quentIy streaked the sky like fire
flakes from flights OF 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.
"Eskimos are optimists,' he says.
"Pessimists have no place in the
Arctic or any other far wilderness,
for that matter, where today's dan
gers and difficulties are real and suf-
fcient unto themselves. Doing his
best with today and providing SO far
as circumstances viii permit for the
future, the Eskimo gives no other
thought to tomorrow than a buoyant
reliance that 1t will take care OF It.
self. just il yesterday did.
"A pessimist who constantly wor-
ries about the morrow would posi-
lively h~ypnotize himself to death in
these lands In q very short time. Pes
simism has been the real cause of
many casualties among Arctic ex-
| plorers."
The billiards. came continually TO
complicate the life that the white
stranger had to lead during the dark
ness. Some of the most vivid pas
sages in his book are those which de-
Il QlCt lu0 Id6lu6 u tAt SCOTulS WHICH
swept down from the north, carrying
snow as hard as shot, destroying and
obliterating everything in their pas
sage.
For days on end Whitney did not
dare to leave his shack at Annootok
to go fifty yards to the nearest igloo
because Of the binding fury of the
tempest. He would have been lost
q dozen steps beyond his own tunnel
entrance. Yet 10 pressing is the need
Of food among the Eskimos that be
tween the ragings Of the storms they
made venturesome excursions after
meat and Whitney accompanied them
on many Of these hunts Il
One occasion when . party q which