WOMAN OF THE ARCTIC

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 114, 16 May 1934, Page 7

WOMAN OF THE ARCTIC

POWER AMONG ESKIMOS

TRADER'S DAUGHTER

LIFE TO GIRL BABIES

(From "The Post's" Representative.) VANCOUVER April 11. Three sons of Captain Klengeubcrg arc "out" for a holiday. For two of them it is their first visit to civilisation. For the eldest, the head of th« family, it is the second trip. Three yeara ago ho camo hero to take back to tho Arctic the ashes of his father, a Scandinavian, whose name is Tevercd from. Point Hope, Alaska, to Victoria Island and King-William Island, where he established a chain of trading posts, now carried on by ins sons. They bring hews, eagerly awaited, of their famous sister Aetna, eldest of tho family, bom of an Eskimo mother. Aetna, married-to an. Eskimo trader, Isaac Bolt, is devoting her life as she approaches middle' age to urging her Eskimo sisters to desist from,the longprevalent habit of doing away with their girl babies.

But for her father Aetna would not! have survived. She was barely four years old, the ago of intelligence among theso hardy people, when she understood why the family met no girl children on their wanderings in search of game and fur. Between her and her father there grew a remarkable affinity. At seven years sho saved his life under circumstances that proved she would be as hardy as any male of the species. Accompanying Her father on his hunting expeditions/ she had acquired a shotgun of-her own, and could-go out alone and bring in a "bag" for the family larder. Klengenberg had ventured too far on shell ice, crashed through, and was caught in a quicksand. His daughter ran up and down the shore loosening driftwood and pushing it out to him. While ho hold on, for a matter of hours, she returned to camp, obtained soino rope, and towed him ashore. .■■ •, EFFICIENT AND FEARLESS. Sho saved his life again when, scarcely out of her teens, Aetna had graduated, as a hunter, from duck shooting, snaring fox,' whalin \ following the trail of the caribou to hunting the seal at the .floe edge. Eskimos hunt the : seal in groups, a whole tribe spreading its stalwarts for several miles. But Klengenberg and his daughter hunted together. The fur seal is wary. For an instant only, his sleek, inconspicuous head may rise above the surface. If he>scents, danger ho disappears for good. Infinite patience is the price of his _pelt. Lying half-hidden for hours behind an ice hummock, Aetna observed a distant floe detach itself from the pack and drift. On it was her father. Sho returned to shore, shipped her dyak, a skin canoe, made to carry ono only, and towed him ashoro on his precarious raft. . Onco again Klengenberg owed hia life to his daughter, before her twelfth birthday. They were stalking the northern, or silver tip, a species distinct .from' tho Polar bear, resembling the grizzly, but smaller and swifter. Coming suddenly on his quarry, Klengenberg ftreft, wounding but not disabling the animal, which charged. The second cartridge .jammed. Klengenberg went down to a blow from the bear's paw.- Aetna, unarmed, used primitive method* to distract the bear, running close behind it, emitting violent yells, and hurling a barrage of rocks and missiles at tho marauder till it decamped. Next day, while her father rested his injured shoulder, she followed the blood trail for tea miles before ' avenging the insult. As her brothers grew up Aetna taught them to be hunters. She swore them to two oaths: kill only in sclf-defenco or for food, and-conserve ammunition .by withholding fire till the game is close enough to be dispatched with ono bullet. ■ INFLUENCE ON THE TRIBES.; Her trailcraft got its supreme test I when her mother was ill and it became necessary to visit a. cache a hundred miles away for food. She made the journey, non-stop, and returned in 48 hours. ■ . Aetna was ten when her father took command of his first whaler, the crew of which | came mainly from div.es in California -ports. Negroes, Chinese, halfbfeeds, harangued by a drunken mate into mutiny; forced the issue to a gun duel between master and mate. The. mutineer fired first, but the captain's aim was steadier. Arriving at Hersehel Island, Klengenberg turned in his,commission-and shipped, with his family as' crew, on tho schooner ;"What. Salved" as a. discarded hiilk' at the mouth of tho Mackenzie, the What was so! named because she defied description. _Tet-Klengenberg and his daughter "piloted -the shapeless' mdss in the Arctic Ocean for six years. Tragedy attended the1 marriage of this-daughter of the Arctic. Wed to-a full-blooded Eskimo, her first-born, a daughter, died.' 'No other, children blessed; their union.: They adopted an Eskimo Jjoy. ' They travelled widely. Aetna gradually'won her1 sisters over to her view that girl babies, must be given .an equal chance with boys. Her name! is whispered'with awe-and reverence whenever nomad tribes-halt. Sho' has now established herself at, Coronation: Gulf in a' pretentious sod-walled home, from which she is better able to carry on her work, for which a grateful Government at Ottawa affords every facility. >