Seward daily gateway., 1925-11-18

TOO miles was accomplished by dog team in twenty-six days.
 First the weather was warm. Then
 the temperature dropped to 30 de-
 grees below zero. On man was frost
 bitten. The dogs were snow blind at
 times and it was necessary for a
 man to go ahead to aid the lead dog.
 At Kotzebue the party obtained
 supplies for the summer and hired
 more teams to freight the provisions and canoes up Notak River and across
 the De Long Mountains of the Brooks
 Range to the Arctic slope
 | After leaving Kotzebue the party camped in tents except one night, which they spent at the native vil- lage of Notak. There is not a single white man in this village and not one of the 250 residents uses tobacco. Eskimo drivers refused to go farther northward than the head of the Utukok River, for fear the snow would melt before they could return, but the whit emen pushed on. Topographic and geologic mapping as begun from earlier surveys on the south side of the range and car r1ed across to the headwaters of the U'tukOk. AS fast as the weather per mitted, the supplies were relayed on toward the head of ColvilIe River. Several times the river opened and froze again during heavy storms, but on May 30 the boats were showed out ln the swift current, and the actual exploration of the upper Colville was begun.
 Over white rapids and dangerous whirlpools and beneath undercut snowbanks, the little group floated on, never knowing what would hap pen around the next bend but realiz- ing that, if boat should upset, it and it's contents could not be regained or replaced, and that if anyone was injured, there would be no hospital or physician. Sometimes the boats would strike rocky bar and would have to be lifted across. The dogs followed along the bank but, in try ing to keep within sight of the boats, they would swim across the river many times each day.
 Deserted lgloos Found.
 The party followed the river for more than 100 miles and mapped an area from twenty to thirty miles wide on each side. In making the trips over the rough tundra away from the river the dogs were used as pack anil mals, carrying packs of twenty-five or thirty pounds for distances of eighteen to twenty-eight miles day. During one of the side trips toward the north from the Colville the head waters of Meade River were discov- cred.
 Snowstorms were frequent, but the snow did not remain on the tundra, and by the middle of June the hills were dotted with flowers of many species and colors. Caribou were seen m small bands every day, and enuf were killed to supply the camp with fresh meat. The country along the upper Colville is not thickly popu- lated with small animals and birds. Formerly the Eskimos lived along the banks of the Colville, and their old igloos, pieces of clay pottery and broken bone implements were found.
 On July 13 the work was tied in to a previous survey of the central part of the Colville Valley, and the party turned south up Etivluk River, big tributary of the Colville. This river was ascended about eighty miles to it's source, at the summit of a low pass in the heart of the Brooks range. The Etiviluk is swift, turbulent riv CT, flowing over many rapids and bars.
 Dogs Tow Boats Up River
 The dogs proved useful in towing the boats, but many times a day for fifteen days the entire party waded in swift ice water above their waists in order to get the boats across the rapids. A maximum airline distance of ten miles day was made in this upstream travel.
 A low, broad pass was found at the head of the Etivluk, and a portage of ess than one mile put the explorers on Nniuk River, one of the main trib- ltaries of the Noatak The party de- 'cended the Aniuk about fifty miles md closed the new surveys by tying n to the earlier survey of the Noatak.
 The return trip was made down the Noatak to Kotzebue, thence to Nome md Seattle, where the party arrived septmeber 16, a month earlier than vas expected, owing to the short