Albuquerque morning journal. [volume] (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1903-1926, 1918-11-07
BLOND ESK|M0S
ARE DESCRIBED
BY levi BOWER
tAssociated Press Correspondence

NhbDclate0 Preba COrTtbpOHutuct.b
Seattle, Nov. 6.-"Sure they're
blond Eskimos' They are aborigines
living up in the white Arctic on Vic
toria Land in their primeval state
absolutely untouched by the outside
worlds civilization. They are COM
petely out of contact with everything
and, consequently, have none of our
improvements and also none Of our
evils"
w. j. Bower known along the Arc
tic coast as Levi Bower one of the
very few men who have gone from the
outside into the far northern almost
tabled land of the blond Eskimos"
thus described them when he was here
recently.
And don't think it was Stefansson
VINO first found them" Bower assert
ed. Vilhjalmur Stefansson, returned
Canadian Arctic explorer who has
been credited with discovering the
strange tribe, agrees with Bower that
he did not find them first. He does,
however, claim that he made the first
study of the tribe and brought back
TO tn outside world the first report OF
its existence.
According to Stefansson and Bower,
a Captain Klinkerherg, master of tho
whaling schooner Olga in 1905 pushed
northwest of Victoria Land where he
found the blond tribe. On his return
TO the whaling base at Herschel Island
an Arctic ocean point, he told of his
findings. Stefansson then at Her.
sche, heard Klinkenberg story and
Immediately went to Victoria where
he made study of the natives
Bower claimed the "blond Eskimos"
are really blond. Stefansson does not
go that far but says they have light
gray, almost blue eyes and a few have
light hair and eyebrows. Bower point
ed out that the "blond" natives have
round full eyes while the other Eski-
mos of the far north have the slant
eyes of Aslatics.
1T looks as If the blond Eskimos'
come from early Greenlanders, or
Scandinavian stock of some kind"
Bower said. II know they are not half
white and half Eskimo because the
half breed Eskmos have black eyes
and black hair. These white ones have
light eyes and light skin and hair.
The old mon of the tribe have the
same white features as the young.
Bows and arrows are used by them.
they know nothing about tobacco and
liquor, they make their fires with
sort of flint, they dress in skins, they
spear their reindeer and club their
fish, they won't eat outsiders food and
they speak language similar to that
Of the Eskimo.
They are hospitable, friendly and
give them anything they are not sat
isfied until they give you something
in return. I gave one woman an
empty baking powder tin and she i'm
mediate Y brought me a big skin.
I'VE left gun with them. Instead
Of using it to kill meat the men SEEM
ed to think it was a plaything for
when I left they were shooting their
bullets away at targets and wildly into
the air. When they ran out of ammu-
milton they probably turned the gun
around and got some real use out of 1t
as a club"
Bower said he thought there were
over $50 "blond Eskimos" on Victoria
Land. 1t is not very probable that
they will ever be molested much by
the outside world for Victoria Land is
far off the usual run of traders and
whalers go into the Arctic no longer.
Bower has served on whaling vessels
in many parts of the north, and until
his recent return to the states, had not
been out of the Arctic for five years.
On Stefansson's last trip he was stew
ard on the schooner Polar Bear which
Stefansson used for a time. Stefansson
took Bower into the "blond Eskimo"
country.