The Wrangell sentinel., 1925-01-22

tion during the unfavorable wealth CT when food from land and sea could not be obtained" MT. Lopp said. "For centuries these Alaskan Eskimos had risked their lives in crossing Boring Strait in skin boats to secure deerskins for their win ter clothing.
 Tt was not difficult to convince the boys that this new industry would always insure them a square meal and a winter coat, and at the same time, free the Alaskan Es- kimo from their bondage to the Siberians who exacted for their reindeer skins practically all the beaver, otter, weasel and foxes caught on the northwest Alaska coast.
 Centuries ago the Siberians crossed the strait from East Cape to Cape Prince of Wales and made war on the Alaskan Eskimos as far north as Shishmarof Inlet and as far south as Port Clarence, and, although these invaders had been defeated and driven back to their own shores, their wealth in great herds of reindeer had always made the Alaskan Eskimos dependent upon them. We were able to ap- peal to the pride and patriotism of our embryonic herders in our af- forts to lift them out of the rut of savagery and free from their ancient enemies"
 The real value of MT. Lopp's work became apparent in January, 1898, when Uncle Sam appealed to him to help save some two hundred whalers who were facing starva- tion at Barrow, where their ships lay crushed or imprisoned in the ice. The message was carried to Cape Prince of Wales by Lieuts. Jarvis and Bertholf and pr. Call, of the revenue cutter Bear, who had made a long overland journey by dog team to reach the Cape It
 | for heroic effort and self sacrifice on the part of the young teacher. He must borrow the rein deer from his herders and drive them some 750 miles along an ice bound coast, notwithstanding the fact that the travelling endurance of the deer had not been tested or the presence of reindeer moss assured. Neither white man nor Native had made that whole jour ney. The Eskimos were afraid to try it. The teacher had a wife and several small children to consider
 MT. and Mrs. Lopp faced their problem by trusting in God. The Natives trusted in them. Without persuasion these erstwhile "sava- ges'' yielded up their new treas ures, confident that at some time their teacher woud replace them Mrs. Lopp took charge of the school and village work. MT. Lopp rounded up 426 reindeer and with the help of four young herders, blazed a virgin trail to Point Bar row. That relief expedition is a matter of history. It couldn't have been made without Lopp.
 The revenue men were to go ahead, but Lopp and his deer pass ed them in the night and blazed their own way.
 Aside from the relief furnished the whalers and the establishment of parent herds at Point Barrow and Point Hope, the most far, reaching effect of that journey was the interest it aroused among the Native people en route," MT. Lopp said. we crossed Kotzebue Sound on the ice and passed through the environs of some 20 Eskimo settlements where the peo- pie had never seen a reindeer, and where staple food consisted of seal, walrus and whale meats-when they could be procured. Into the
 Aingness of that sixty-five-be- low zero existence came vast herd of domesticated caribou and a white man who could speak their Eskimo language; and into the dormant mentalities of these desert dwellers, after they had recovered from their amazement, came hope-the promise of food and clothing through the affluence of leadership. They followed us and begged for some of the animals but that was impossible at the time"
 MT. Lopp's next great work, in