MAN V. NATURE

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 127, 25 November 1929, Page 7

MAN V. NATURE

IN THE ANTAECTIC

BYRD AND. HIS COMPANIONS

(By Russell Owen—Copyright by Sydvey '' Sun . and New York Times.'>)

Down in the Australian and New Zealand quadrants of the Antarctic Commander Byrd leads a small army of intrepid men who are mapping the landscape and daily adding to our sum of knowledge of the- desolate Antarctic wilds.

The world calls these men Americans, but what manner of men aro they?

Clerks, returned soldiers, sailors, parsons' sons—as varied a collectionas.ever served in such an enterprise. : . .

LITTLE AMERICA, Antarctica, Ist October.

. Following is the actual personnel of the supporting sledge party leaving to spy out the unknown land south of our ■bsse:^-

- Arthur Walden; leader of the party and a dog driver all his life, was torn in; Indianapolis, 10th May, 1871. His father was the Eev. Treadwill Walden, ■who.for,.a time was rector of old St. Paul's Church in Boston ; just before Phillips. Brooks was there. Although his. family moved 'to Boston, Walden was sent to the Shattuck military school at Faribault, Minn., and after leaving there he went to farming in JNew. Hampshire. ,

'"I/got restless," lie said, "and.tossed a coin to see whether I should go to South Africa or Alaska. It came down Alaska, and that is how. I happened to come down here."

Walden got to Alaska in 1896, two years before the famous gold rush started, and for seven years he drove dogs, freighting loads into the mines and over the dangerous trails along the Yukon and over the mountains. Then he returned to .the East and married Katherine Sleeper, grand-daughter of Captain Sleeper, who was Mayor of , Eoxbury, Mass.

Walden went to farming again, and settled at Wonalancet, N.H., where he has jived ever since, driving and breeding sledge dogs for a hobby. ' WalSen introduced dog racing in the East, and with his famous leader, Chinook, who died down here, won several important races. He is the author of "A Dog Puncher on the Yukon."

DE GANAHL BORN IN MEXICO,

Joe de Ganahl is navigator of the supporting party. He was with Commander Byrd on his North Pole expedition. He was born at Tampico, Mexico, 30th December, .1902, the son of Charles P. and Florence de Ganahl. He lived on a sugar plantation near Tainpico, and at Mexico City until 1913, when the revolution forced his family to leave. . -_ '-- ■■■■■

He went to the Haekley School at .Tarrytown, N.Y., from 1915 to 1921, then entered Harvard and was graduated in 1925. He was oh the Harvard*: Crimson. Board four years,' and assist--ant managing editor his last two years.' While at Harvard he . entered t _ the. Naval Eeserve aviatio.n unit'" at.. Boston, and in the summer '.of 1924"was at^ the naval air station at Squantum "as a student aviator. He had advance .training at the naval air station at Hampton Boads, Va., in the summer of 1925, and was commissioned as ensign in the fleet reserve aviation as a navalaviator in December, 1925. -

He entered Yale University in the fall of 1925 to "take Professor Baker'scourse in playwriting, and at the same time became a reporter on "The New Haven Register." He left there in April, 1926, to join the Byrd North Pole .expedition.

On his return he married Josephine Coombs, of Searsdale, N.Y., and re-1 joined the staff of "The New Haven, Later he was a. reporter" on "The White Plains Beporter" "ana "The New York Herald." '

During his training- iiuthe Naval He-, serve he studied navigation, and later took up the subject under Commander Theodore Nelson, of the Naval Beserve, head of the Nautical Academy in New [York. This winter he has .further extended his knowledge of navigation by studying under Commander Byrd. He was in active training at the Roekaway naval air station in 1927 and 1928, and joined the expedition in the summer of 1928. He has a two-year-old son, Charles. rOTTGHT TOR BRITISH. • Christopher Braathen is the ski expert of the expedition. He was born at Eker, Norway, on 29th June, 1895. He went to high school and the technical school at Horten, and, between periods of school, went to sea, making voyages to German West Africa, serving at a whaling station, and. sailing out of Capetown several times. When ; the war started he joined the English' transport service, and served in this in the Channel and on two voyages to the Congo. After leaving the British service he served in the Norwegian Navy's aviation section, and then completed his schooling in Norway, and went to sea again. After a voyage which landed him in Hamburg, Germany, he worked as an engine erector for a year, and then went to the technical school at Thuringen, from which he was graduated as a civil engineer. The lure of the sea was too strong for Chris to settle down long, however, and for the nest few years he sailed the seven seas in the ships of seven nations. He has won several ski races in Norway. Jacob Bursey, who is known as Jack or "Hob," is 26, and was born at St. Lunaire, in the St. Bards district of Newfoundland, the most northern part of that country, on the Belle Isle Strait. St. Lunaire is a fishing village, and Jack's people are fishermen. They hunt seals in the spring, fish in the sumber and fall, and, with his father, William Bursey, Jack used to go on trips to St. John's to dispose of the fish caught during the season., He learned to drive dogs at his home, for they are used there for transport during the long winter season. After attending the local schools, Bursey decided to go to school in the States, and in 1924 went to Boston, where he spent a year in a mechanical school. The following summer he was in charge of a yacht at Naushon Island, near Woods Hole, on the Southern Massachusetts coast, and then went to New York to study in the Missionary Training Institute, as he wanted to go back home as a missionary, inspired by the example of Sir \Vilfre(i Grenfell, who often stopped at his father's home.

But he left the school and went to work in New York on river boats n-nt.il. he saw that the Byrd expedition was being organised, and applied for a job. *

On the trail, Walden, Braathen, and Bursey will drive the dog teams, with Walden in charge of ttio party, and de Ganahl will, in addition to his duties as navigator, be radio operator and cook.