Fifteen years or so ago, I knew an old trader, a Scotchman, who had then lived forty years in the far North. His only link with civilization was the supply ship which called at his Post, once a year, in summer.
In those days radios were unknown. The man was content with one mail a year. As soon as the vessel had left his station, he was entirely cut off from the rest of the world until the next summer.
He worked for a rival company and for several years I never had an occasion to meet him, although we had a trading station of our own a few miles down the coast.
In 1911, our steamer was passing his Post when we saw a whale boat, manned by four Eskimos, coming out to meet us. In the stern sat the old man. Knowing that our ship was the first in that year, we slowed down expecting that the trader was in some kind of trouble.