PEN FRIENDS' LEAGUE

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22355, 19 March 1938, Page 6 (Supplement)

PEN FRIENDS' LEAGUE

AN ESKIMO GIRL

ALASKA

I live at Kanakanak, in, Alaska. . Kanakanak is a lonely place, as one might think, at .first sight, but after having been here for six months, one wouldn’t think so, after all. The mail in the winter

is brought in by dogsled, and that only 1 three times a winter, and in May, the first steamer comes in with —oh, loads of mail for us and every one else.* The hospital has 11 dogs, and four} puppies. I think the orphanage .has 13, but I am not sure. They do not - bite—the hospital's dogs don’t. They come when you whistle, and,’Mukluks is the one that is most tame. The temperature, at the lowest, is 20 below zero, and the snow above the paths is. eight feet deep, at the

LETTERS FROM FAR-AWAY GIRLS AND BOYS

GUATEMALA

CALIFORNIA

highest, and in the drifts, 10 to 19.' or so. —MARY LOUISE RANDLE (aged 12), Kanakanak, Alaska.

: I wonder if anyone has a potato •puppet hobby like mine.. Take a potato, wash it, and scrape the skin off. Then carve a face in it. At the bottom, where the neck should be, make a hole big enough to fit your finger. Next, paint it with water colours' and leave it to dry. If the potato is a large one, only one puppet can be made on each hand. If it is small, 10 can be made. Now you put the potato face on your finger, wrap a cloth round it to represent clothing, i and your puppet is ready to go on the stage. —ELINOR PEC?C (aged 12), San Pedro. San Marcos, Guatemala, Central America.

Perhaps some of you have noticed the likeness of a fuschia to a marionette or puppet. The petals underneath will stand for the girl’s dress. If you prefer fp make a boy, tear off the purple petals, and leave some of the red coat-like things for the boy’s coat. (I think

cl these as coat 7 tails on grown-up gepllethen.) The stamens will stand as the boy's pants. Tear off ah the Stamens except two. I have made a FuscHia City. First I found a space to place my city, then T divided the blossoms into several groups, and these were the different families. I have found this play very entertaining on a hot afternoon. —THUTILOW R, WILSON (aged 9), 77 San Mateo road, Berkeley, Calif.

Shuguk is the nanfie of this •Eskimo girl who lives In Alaska. In Winter she wears two suits of, fur clothes,. both made by her mother from the*skin of animals. One suit is worn with the furry side next to the skin and the other has the fur

outside. Shuguk lives yi an igloo in the winter, a house made, of ice that looks like half a huge ball. Inside there are no beds, or tables, only piles of skins. ’ Her mother cooks meat and fish oyer a tiny stove that is really like a lamp. Eskimo boys and girls do not have bread or vegetables, salt or sugar. Whales and narwhals live in the water. Eskimo girls learn to braid the sinews of the narwhal evenly and closely into tense bow strips for their fathers to hunt reindeer with, using bows and arrows. The children use a little sealskin bag, filled with sand, for a ball.

Pen-Friends Wanted

Grace Coulter (aged 1$), Bridge End, Geraldine R.D. (Would like pen-friend in Afric*. or Honolulu.)

Jean Crawford, Elgin, Ashburton, Mid Canterbury, (Would like pen-friend in Engv land or Scotland,)

Bronwyn Stalker- (aged 14), “Holm'wood,” Ealing, • - Mid Canterbury, (Would like a pen-friend in Egypt and Pacific Islands.)

June Kirk, Herbert street, Walmate. ! (Would like pen-friend, aged 13-16, interested in all outdoor sports,)