Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1943-11-10

"a sc an k7z1N -
ing himself. But Search and
Rescue has built up an enNlable
record of saving lives
Irwin or some of his fellow
workers cruise in a plane until
they find missing craft. But
thousands of square miles are
without hahitatiOn, food or even
q hat space large enough 10 land
q plane.
SO. when the search" part Is
accomplished. Irwin starts the
rescue. He leads his deg team
into a transport plane, flies 10
whatever landing place il clos
est 20 the wreck, unloads his
dogs and Sledge and starts out
across the snow.
There are. of course. faster
modes of travel. You might. for
example. take one OF the new
caterpillar tread machines de-
sized 10 travel over snow, but
YOU might be sorry.
For up where the tempera-
ture ranges around 50 below,
gasoline engines are tinicky.
Turn off the motor while YOU
camp at night and the chances
are that YOU never will get II
started again in the morning.
Man still depends on dogs for
transportation in the struggle
against nature in the raw,
north of the Arctic Circle.
sits an open secret that
army engineers have been work
ing on this problem of frozen
motors. Some ~ the troubles
have been whipped and the
methods have been valuable in
Russia. But Irwin, when he
passed through Detroit, told me
that. for his purposes, he wants
Eskimo huskies.
Irwin s nomlnal nome uSeu 10
he Grand Rapids-his parents
lived there, but he spent most
of his time in the north. Now,
his father is a Detroiter, w. T.
Irwin, Tn the meat business, 1t.
Irwin stopped 10 see him on his
way 10 Buckley Field. Colo.
from whence he will go back
north, probably 10 Alaska.
Back of Irwin IL another story
OF the wilds, even more melo-
dramatic than anything that
has happened 20 him in the war.
Perhaps you remember that
In the middle 1905, huge
reindeer herd was driven acorSs
the frozen wastes from Aklavik,
near the Alaska border. 10 the
western slope of Hudson Bay.
IL was an errand of mercy,
because the eastern EskimOs,
short OF meat. starved and fire.
quently died i'm famines. They
now have the reindeer.
Well, Irwin helped drive the
herd 1000 miles.
The reindeer was slow. Irwin
was impatient, Alone, with his
sledge and dogs, he cut ahead
TO explore and prospect the
most forbidding, the most dan
gerous country in North
America.
Irwin. moving into the famine
areas. ran short OF food himself
In the tidewater streams run
ming into the polar sea. he built
corral-shaped traps of stone,
SplaShed in shallow pools until
f1sh were driven in, and waited
for the tied 10 run out, leaving
the fish stranded He and the
dogs ate them raw.
Later, he lay on his back on
the ice and kicked his feet---a
native trick 20 attract seals
and killed one. Dogs and man
ate the seal raw. Irwin dashed
himself TO the sledge and helped
pull IL, for his dogs feet were
bleeding. Dogs frOze 60 death.
He chopped the sledge in two.
TO make IL lighter. He tried Ia
eat one dead dog, hut fatigue
poisOns made him violently III.
When he reached an Eskimo
village, he was half snOwblind.
his knee had been dislOcated by
n fall and his hand, infected nv
Insect bites, was swollen 10
twice normal size.
The Eskimos nurScd him and
he lived, although they were
puzzled at light-skinned man
who, half mad with pain, bab-
bled At them i'm mixture of
Eskimo and English. Only one
Of the ESkimos, an old woman
ever had seen white man. Just
one. The man she had seen had
been there 80 odd wears before,
the explorer Amundsen.
r n