The Daily Alaska empire., 1928-09-22
ARCTIC PARTY
 VISITS JUNEAU , ENR0UTE EAST
Philadelphia Academy of Science Expedition
 Pays Juneau Visit

With four months of sub-Arctic and Arctic voyaging behind il, the Arctic Expedition of the Phila- delphia Academy of Science, head ed by Capt Vladimir Vasilievich Perfilief, visited in Juneau yester- day afternoon and last night. and sailed today on the steamer Prin- cess Louise for Philadelphia, via Prince Rupert.
 Other members of the party were: w. Jenks Woolston, orni- thologist, Chester Griswold, cam eraman, and c. w. Baylis, secre- tary and recorder. The object of the expedition was to get speci- mems of plant and bird life in northern Canada and Alaska and to make pictorial records of Eski- mo types.
 Lose Part of Collection
 On the return Journey from the Arctic Coast, while ascending Peel River, in a storm a boat. carrying the party's outfit and part of its collection, was swamped and sunk A considerable part of it's food supplies and specimens and pie lures including camera studies and canyassse in oil painting, instru- ments for preparing specimens, were lost. The loss of the food handicapped the party in it's return to Fort Yukon.
 The expedition started it's voy- age early last June. It went down the Mckenzie River to it's mouth, thence to Hersehel Island, returned to the Mckenzie which it ascended to Rat River. It portrayed across to the Porcupine River and descended it to Fort Yukon. There it boarded a steamer for Whitehorse and came to Skagway. It arrived here yes terday on the steamer Queen af- ter visiting Sitka.
 EpidemIc klllS Many
 Indian and Eskimo villages on the lower Mckenzie River were swept by an epidemic, believed to have been influenza, during the summer, Capt. Perfilief reported here. The number of recorded deaths reached 2S9 and probably many died of which there was no record.
 The expedition gave all the as- sistance in it's power to the strick- en villagers, and this later proved inconvenient to it. Many of the villages they saw had at least 50 per cent of their population sick; in many houses, the dead, i'll and those not affected were crowded together: there were not enough able bodied residents left unaffect- ed to bury the dead.
 Members of the expedition at tended the sick, gave up their en- tire store of medical supplies and showed the natives how to care for those afflicted
 Indians Shun Party
 After they had crossed the Rat River portage on their way back to civilization, short of sugar, salt and flour, which they had lost in the Peel River storm, Capt. Per filief had hoped tc obtain at least ! some of the missing articles from the Indians encountered. But they summed the party as if 1t were plague-stricken. Knowing it had come from the Mckenzie country, and of the fatal epidemic raging there, the Porcupine h. dians would not let members of the expedition approach them.
 For 30 days, the party went without sugar, salt and flour, liv- ing largely on rice. of which it had an abundance, and ducks and small game it killed. Only the lack of salt bothered the men. and meat cooked without it became al- most unbearable. When we view ed Fort Yukon, it was the most pleasing sight that had ever greet ed our eyes" declared Capt Per filief.
 In this city, Capt Perfilief was overjoyed to meet two former col AF |, school days. He went to the Alaska Juneau messhouse to talk with some of the Russians living there and among them were his former college classmates. These were G. s. Sedloff and Boris $. Maslinnikoff, both of whom were captains in the old Russian Army Among the others were men who