The Wrangell sentinel. (Wrangell, Alaska) 1909-current, 1939-08-04

An imaginary line IN the berlns|
Sea has played havoc with the So
clal and economic life of the Do
mede Eskimos. Arthur Eide of An
chorage, former indian service
teacher at the Arctic outpost for
three years told the Anchorage
Times.
1t brought death sentence down
upon the head of an American mis-
sionary and it has several times
threatened the health and lives of
the tribe of friendly and intelligent
people who have thriYed on the IS
lands for centuries.
Mr.. Eide, who with his wife and
daughter, is making his home in
Anchorage, recalled the Diomedes
when he received a letter this week
from his friend, FIT. B. Lafortune.
S. j., Catholic missionary at Kings
Island, who acknowledged Mr.. Eide'sI
Christmas greeting card. The letter
told of a severe winter on the Ber-I
ing Sea island when the natives de-
serted their homes for MONTH
while a storm howled necessarily.
Now the danger is over and they
are back in their homes" he said.
The letter was dated June %.
The line Mr.. Eide talked about is
the international boundary line that
separates Alaska from Soviet terri
tory. It runs squarely through the
middle of the two-mile wide chan
mel that separates Big and Little
Diomede Big Diomede is on the Rus
sian side, while Little Diomede is
part of Alaska.
Natural currents of the Boring
Sea combine with the strict, almost
military rule of the Soviets over
their island to make the boundary
line at that point as treacherous to
human lives as if it were an cleo
trically-charged barbed wire barrier.
AS the ice pack shifts back and
forth between the Arctic Ocean and
the Boring Sea the Walrus, seal and
other game go with 1t. 1t is then the
hunting season. The Eskimos put out
from both islands in their skin boats
and drift with the current and ieeI
cakes, killing for their winter sup
ply.
When the floe is distributed even
ly between the islands all is we'll
and everyone has plenty of food.
However, when the current shifts
the ice pack and its game to the
Big Diomede shore then hunting Isl
poor for the Americans because theI
Soviets allow no trespassing on Big
Diomede. The regulations are sol
strict that the Little Diomede ma
tives dare not cross the information
al line on fear of death.
Two years ago FIR. Thomas Gun
bingham, the missionary on Little
Diomede and long time friend of Mr..
Eide, went on a haunting expedition
with a group of HIS proteges.
They were drifting back toward
home, hunting as they came, when
the current caught them and swung
them across to the Big Diomede.
Father Cunningham was arrested,
taken to the mainland where mis-
trial was brief and without benefit
of jury, and he was condemned to
death. Only by outwitting the Rus
sian authorities was he able to save
his life. Asking to see his death
warrant, he discovered it did not
bear Stalin's name and challenged
its validity. Father Cunningham
must have hit a vulnerable spot
with the Russians for they allowed
him to go free.
Last winter was one in which
food was kept from the mouths of
hungry men, women and children of
the Little Diomede by the impene-
trable wall of an imaginary line.
Conditions were so bad that a chief
committed suicide through sheer
remorse for his people.
So far as the people of Big and
Little Diomedes were concerned
there was no boundary line before
the present Soviet regime came into
power, Mr. Eide said. The people of
the two islands traded back and
forth, they intermarried and thrived,
for the channel between the two
islands was the most fertile hunting
grounds in all of the Arctic. When