The Cordova daily times., 1922-02-08

l of Alaska where 1t borders on katbel-
 ne Sound, is the village of Noorvik
 with three hundred and fifty Eskimo population. Here the government
 maintains it's most northerly wire-
 less station, probably the farthest
 north on the globe, messages from this
 isolated land being flashed to the | outside world via Nome and Nulata.
 Isaac Newlin, in his early twenties, is
 Noorvik's native wireless operator,
 school teacher and mechanical gen. jus.
 Isaac comes from primitive Eskimo l stock. His ancestors were river peo-
 pie, Papa Newlin being known as a
 Kobuk river man. When Isaac was a
 child the United States Bureau of Ed
 ucation had established small school ] at Noorvik This invasion of ciyiliza-
 tfon was at first regarded apathetical- 1 ly by the natives, but being a hos
 pitable people they soon welcomed the l
 Pa Newlin worked slowly but on the right track. He sent Isaac to school where he became a bright pupil and
 soon passed the sixth grade, which 1 was the highest he could achieve in the limited educational facilities pro- l vided
 About that time the Noorvik Eski mos established cooperative sawmill and the machinery of this plant so
 attracted Isaac that he obtained em- ployment there. He developed me
 chanical genius and besides keeping the mill machinery in shape was in
 demand whenever an engine, in the ! river gas boats went out of commits l sion. Establishment of the govern i ment wireless station at Noorvik was the signal for him to study the intri-
 cacies of the radio and he became a devout student of Marconi With homemade keys he devised crude wireless set and stretched land wires between the village houses The oper- ator of the Noorvik station loaned the enthusiastic boy radio books from which he learned the code.
 At the time the government decided to install a small radio station at kotzebue, less than a hundred miles <1 1it,to >l, ocean, Isaac, now considered an adept operator, was sent to kotzebue to ilI- stall the outfit. This marked a new
 epoch in Federal education os Far North natives. for he was the first
 Eskimo to operate and install q wire-
 less station
 Leaving school did not stop Isaac's thirst for knowledge and he studied as
 siduously during the long Arctic night.
 At Kotzebue he took charge of a
 small native school, besides operating the wireless station and sending radio messages to the big station at Noor-
 vik Later he was called back to Noorvik and was installed as assist ant teacher at Federal Eskimo school, which is maintained in con- | nectfon with a hospital in that village. Today Isaac is assistant teacher at Noorvik, as we'll as assistant oper- ator of the radio station. Recently he
 married the village belle Her name is Florence Pommak and she owns sixteen reindeer in the big Noorvik herd. The couple live i'll two-story frame house. neatly furnished with some of the attractions advertised in mail-order catalogues.
 In addition to his other talents, Isaac
 sings in the Noorvik choir An Es-
 kimo choir may seem a novelty to an American, but each year the village
 assemble at Kotzebue to compete for the honor of winning a memorial ban ner presented to the best Eskimo chor-
 isters. Isaacs warblers won second
 prize at the last event.
 Young Newlin, with other progress i've natives, is now seeking civic i'm provements in his village. Noorvik is
 the historic Eskimo village that was
 built overnight. The Noorvik natives
 originally lived at Deering on the bleak Arctic sea coast where they made their homes in the semi-under-
 ground novels of their ancestors be-
 cause of lack of timber. Food was
 also scarce, so the populace one day packed up and drove their dogs and
 reindeers nearly two hundred miles up the Kobuk river, where the gov-