TERRIBLE HORIZONS

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 84, 9 April 1926, Page 7

TERRIBLE HORIZONS

NORTHERN SLOPE OF ALASKA,

(Sydney Sun Cable.)

VANCOUVER, 7th April.' For two days following Captain Wilkins's tour into the Arctic a blizzard swept the coast line east and west of Barrow. Monday . morning opened clear. Eielson started the motor and taxied up and down the icefield, but was unable to rise owing to the drifted snow. Esquimaux cleared the snow away, and the following day the flight was. commenced^ Everything went well, until Wiseman was passed, then head winds took the aeroplane off its course and compelled a landing in Circle City.

Describing the slide down, the hill from the crest, of the Endacott Range towards the Arctic, Captain Wilkins said they encountered the most rugged scenery ever witnessed. Knife edge and saw. tooth ranges piled one after another for undetermined miles, each serrated horizon being more terrible than the one behind. Finally they came out into- the foothills and frozen white tundra lay ahead as far as the' aching eye. could see.

"We were flying faster than we had figured and crossed the' coastline about fifteen miles east of Barrow, and ice was below us before we realised it. The results show that we were flying a hundred miles an hour. We continued seaward for 75 minutes, and it was two hours and a half after we passed Barrow when we turned. The utmost position reached northward was 125 miles beyond Barrow. Beyond that we could see 75 miles over ice hummocks and sea lanes. This is at least a hundred mile's further than a human being has ever before penetrated' beyond the Alaskan coast."