New Britain herald. [microfilm reel] (New Britain, Conn.) 1890-1976, 1923-08-31

selling out of date women's clothes!"
! Cant, Ell? Son, while he was
talking to me, it occurred to me all
at once that the least of those gowns,
the poorest one in the lot, was worth
at least a marten skin! Think of it.
| A. marten skin, from Northern Cana
da and Alaska, returned the trapper
around $50 in 1920. Now let me get
down to brass lacks.
Its true I don't intend to sell any
of those hairy old white trappers any
women's silk gowns. But this was
what was going to have you do:
first you were to hire good auxili-
airy schooner strong, sturdy, sea-
worthy two-masted craft such as is
used in northern trading. You'd fit
that craft out with a few weeks sup
plies and fill the hold with a couple
of thousand of those gowns. YOU'D
need two or three men to run the
launch-I believe the usual crew is a
pilot, first and second engineer, and
a cook-and you'd have to have a
seamstress to do fitting and make
minor alterations. They you'd start
up for Bering Sea
you may not know it, but along
the coast of Alaska land throughout
the islands of Bering Sea there are
hundreds of little, scattered tribes of
Indians, all of them trappers of the
finest, high priced furs Nor do their !
women dress in furs and skins alto
gether, either, as popular legend |
would have you believe. Through |
their hot, long summer days they
wear dresses like American women,
and the gayer and prettier the dresses,
the better they like 'em. To my
no one has ever fed them
because silk was too
being women, red or white,
they'd simply go crazy over 1t.
THE other factor in the combina-
ton is that the Intrepid, due to the
unsettled fur market, failed to do any
extensive buying on her last annual
trading trip through the islands, and
IS result practically all the Indians
have their full catch on hand. The
Intrepid is the only trader through
The particular chain of islands | have
n mind--the Skopin group, north and
cast of the Aleutian chain-and she's
not counting on going up again till
spring Then she'll reap richa har-
test-unless you get there first.
THE Skopin Islands are charted-
my that are inhabited at all-easy to
Ind, easy to get to with a sea- worthy
aunch. Every one of those Indians
you'll find there will lbuy dress for
MS sauaw or his daughter to show off
n, during the summer, and pay for it
With a fine piece of fur.
This is August. I'm already ar
angling for a license. You'd have to
ret going in a week. Hit as far
,orth as you want-the farther you
70 the better you will do-and then
work. south. Making big chain
hat cuts off the currents and the
ides the Skopin group is surrounded
" an unbroken ice sheet in mid
winter, so you have to count on
ounding the Aleutian Peninsula into !
Pacific waters some time in Novem-
,er. If you wait much longer you're |
pt not to get out before spring. {
That's the whole story. The car /
% of furs you should bring out q
houd be worth close to a hundred
thousand. Expenses won't be fifteen t
thousand In all. 1t would mean
ork; dealing with bunch of crafty t
edskins isn't play for boys! Maybe /
here'd be cold and rough enough
weather., for Boring Sea deserves no "
mans trust. But it would be the
nest sport in the world, an oppor-
unity to take Alaskan bear and tun-
ra caribou-plenty of adventure and
and tremendous profits to
DOT. 1t would be mans job, Ned
but you'd get a kick out of it you
ever got out of booze party in
our life. And we split the profits
5-e5-the lions share to you"