LOST IN THE WILDS

Evening Star, Issue 19841, 14 April 1928, Page 21

LOST IN THE WILDS

AIRMEN WIN BACK TO SAFETY AH ESKIMO HERO [From Ooa Correspondent.] VANCOUVER, March 11. Full details now available show that the real hero of one of tho greatest struggles against the forces of Nature which has ever come to public attention in Canada, that of the two flyers, Flying-officer A. A. Lewis and Flightsergeant N. C. Terry, lost out on the North Atlantic and in the barren, mountainous wastes of the Labrador coast, was “ Bobby,” the Eskimo guide, whose vast knowledge of Arctic conditions and his long experience in getting a living off a land which appears to yield none, almost certainly saved .his companions from a slow and horrible death.

Together with the native the two whitd’ men did a crash, landing sixty miles out on tho shifting ice of the Northern Atlantic. For a whole day they walked east, thinking that they were in Ungava. Then the visibility cleared, and they were able to see far off in the westward the thin lino of land which marked the tops of the high mountains peeping over the horizon. With a thrill of horror they realised that they had been going in the wrong direction, and doubtless they were thankful for what seemed almost like an act of Providence, the lifting of the mists into which they were walking_ towards the edge of the ice belt and into tho black freezing waters of tho sea. As they looked around and saw those rugged mountains rising to the west they thought they were not much more than a day’s journey ahead of them, but the bright, snapping air had deceived them. For a week they struggled over the rugged ice in the direction of this low strip along the horizon, paddling themselves over stretches of open water on the inflated air raft which they carried away from the aeroplane. Finally the native lost the raft, and from that time on they navigated on ice pans, using the paddles from the raft. FACED HUNGER. Hunger stared them in the face, as they had lost part of their provisions; and had been forced to throw away more when it became too heavy to carry any further. Bobby came to the rescue and shot a. walrus with an emergency kit rifle which they had taken along, and the three hungry men tore it apart with their knives and ate it raw before it froze as hard as stone. After plunging along slowly over the piles of drifting ice they reached land near Kamaktorviki and proceeded to walk along the coast in a northerly direction. Walking over land was nearly as bad as walking over ice, as tho country is one of the most rugged and mountainous on the continent. With nothing in sight but snow, ice, and rock they trudged wearily on, and four days later met an Eskimo hunter, who knew exactly where he was. In his company they walked along 'the shore until, on the evening of Thursday, March I, ninety miles from Kamaktorvik. they came into country which they recognised. Spurred on by the thought that they _ were nearly home they redoubled their efforts. At midnight they walked over the hill, and there before them lay the base at Port Bin-well, tho harbor, the Hudson Bay Company’s post, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police cabin, the hangars down on the beach, and _ tho old Moravian mission house, with stone walls .3ft thick, in which their comrades were sleeping. , The door is never locked in those isolated parts, because there is no one to lock it anainst. And, stumbling in, tho three men, with their hunter companion, raised a shout. Instantly the occupants awoke, and a yell of joyful greeting brought, the whole staff rumbling out of bed. No word over the air told the world of these scones of welcome which were enacted on that night. There is no mention of how the old. solemn mission building rang with the’ shouts and laughter of the men while the cook was rousted out and rushed away to prepare a hot meal for tho hungry wanderers. NEWS FLASHED OUT. After the first greeting tho radio operator, Paquette, .scrambled into his clothing and rushed up the steep hill behind the mission house to send the glad tidings, singing out to the world through tho frozen, still night air. All through Canada people had eagerly been scanning the newspapers day after day, hoping that tho three men would be found, and tho news that they had found themselves came as a dramatic climax to one of the greatest aviation stories that tho world has known. Flyer after flyer has disappeared, never to ho heard of again, hut by dogged pertinacity and through the vast knowledge of “ Bobby,” the Eskimo, the three were saved. For “Bobby” it was all in the day’s work. Ho is not so young, and looking after two white men who would almost surely have starved or frozen to death without him was nothing so very much out of the ordinary. The airmen’s two comrades, Flightlieutenant Loitch and Squadron-leader Lawrence, did heroic work in searching for them. They forced their way to Burwell from Nottingham Island and Wakeman Bay in the worst kind of weather, and joined in the search from tho air, while across the snow and ice men and dogs with sleighs struggled over the vast distance, hoping that they might pick up some.trace which would lend them to their friends.