The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1925-11-03
THE ARCTIC TAKES GRIM
TOLL OF SHIPS AND MEN
MANY NEVER RETURN AFTER
SETTING OUT TO NORTH.
LIE IN HIDDEN GRAVES.
OBLIVION is THEIR REWARD
Vast Fields of Ice and Snow Devor
Many Sturdy Craft and Bodies of
Heroes Who Have Dared Their
Deadly Oceans.

OSoA4J ONSoAio'
The great drama OF the North is
full of tales OF lost ships and men.
Enormous is the toll in life and prop
erty that the Arctic, swith its bleak,
unrelenting ice packs and its binding
SHOWS and deadly cold, takes from
those who brave its seas.
Here and there, on this bleak shore
or that, the gaunt skeletons of lost
ships stand stark in the ice. These
silent markers tell meager, STIRRING
stories of disaster Sometimes there
is only silence, with not even bro
ken mast to mark the grave of a ship
and brave men.
Three expeditions of explorers, how
ever, within recent months have es-
capped the grip Of the Arctic
Capt. Road Amundsen and his
men returned safely from a dash to
the North Pole in aHplanes-but they
left one of their machines behind in
the grip Of Arctic ice.
Capt. Donald B. Macmillan and his
men, fighting through terrific storms,
have returned from similar expedi-
ton.
Capt. Amundsen's ship, the Maud,
has returned safely to port after drift
ing for several years in Arctic ice
foes
Now these three rank among the
few who have gone to the Arctic in
ships without some loss of life.
Others Less Fortunate.
Others have been less fortunate.
In 1914 the Stefanson expedition
went into the Arctic in sturdy ship.
The ship, the Karluk, sank in the ice
dotted Arctic seas, and the men of
the party set out afoot to find aid and
to save themselves
Not long ago, however, another ex-
ploring party came upon a grim row
Of graves about o5 miles from the
spot where the Karluk sank In the
graves were the bodies of the men of
the Stefanson expedition Near them
were sleds and bones of the dogs
they had tried in vain to use to escape
the grim hand OF the North. All had
persisted.
William Nutting and three COM
panions set out from Norway in the
ship Lief Erickson in 1924 to follow
the Viking trail to America. In due
time they reached and departed from
the coast of Greenland. Then they dis
appeared. That is all.
The Erebus and the Terror, COM
panion ships. with crews of 129 men,
sailed for the Arctic in May, l845.
But neither OF the ships nor any of
the men returned, Thirty relief expedi-
tions in as many years went iii search
of them, but all in vain. In 1889
scrap OF paper-a farewell note to the
world written by one OF the men
established the fact that all had per-
ished.
Drifted in Ice Two Years.
1t is an oft-told tale how the
Jeanette entered an ice pack near Her
aid Island, never to emerge from If.
For two years the ship drifted in the
grip of the ice. For two years Com
mander George De Long and his men
hoped that the ice would break away
from them. Then, June IL, 1881, the
ice crushed the ship as if it had been
toy. The men were shelterless on
an ice foe in mid-ocean.
In a superb effort to make their
way back to food and hearthfres the
commander and nine of his men per-
ished. George w. Melville, the chief
engineer, and nine men, after unspeak-
able hardships, reached a little Rus
sian village on the Lena delta.
In 1892 Bjorling and Kallstenius,
two Swedish boys, in 32-ton vessel
with crew of three, set out to see
what the North might have in store
for them. A year later a whaler found
their ship crushed in the ice and the
body of one of the boys buried under
a pile of rock on the coast nearby
That was all that ever was heard of
the gallant crew.
The Victory was the first steam yes
sci TO enter the Arctic. Her men
abandoned her in the ice and after
500-mile journey, saved themselves by
finding the cache OF another lost ship.
Today maps guide the explorers in
to all but the most remote sections
of the Arctic But no map no familiar
guide-posts, cheered Sir Hugh Will
loughby when he took the Bona Spe-
rama into the North in 1903. The
ship reached Nova Zembia. Some
Russian fisherfolk later found it in the
ice crushed, its men dead.
May Hear Strange Echoes.
Perhaps in the dead OF the northern
night here can be heard strange echoes
OF the long line OF ships that have
surrendered their commands in the
ice. Perhaps, too, there are whisper
ings OF lost commanders and lost
crews.
But seekers of the North who re-
turn TO civilization to tell their stir
ring tales will explain that there are
no echoes no whisperings in the wild
wastes of ice and snow
There is only the gIaring white ST.
lence of the short summer, the gray
silence of the long twilight, and the
star-spangled darkness OF the long
winter night.
. ooo ooO WEARS OLD