THE OMIAKPUK COMES

Evening Star, Issue 21823, 12 September 1934, Page 11

THE OMIAKPUK COMES

WHEN THE ALASKAN ICE PACK IS BREAKING UP

It was late in July—time for the arrival of our first boat. Eleven months before the revenue cutter Bear had deposited us in an Eskimo village on the bleak Arctic coast of Northern Alaska, steamed away to the south, and left us there (writes E. C, Forrest, in thc‘ Christian Science Monitor ’). Our nearest white neighbours were at Barrow, a hundred miles away. We had not seen a white face in many months. And now, at (my moment, the first vessel of the season might be sighted—some adventurous whaler creeping ■northward through leads of open water 'that wound, blackly through the ico pack. Day and night all through the twenty-four hours of sunlight someone was on the watch. On that flat, treeless tundra the Government schoolhonse which housed my husband and myself was the only elevation. A big red-and-white framed building comprising schoolrooms and living quarters in one, it loomed up among the low, rounded igloos of the Eskimos like a mother ptarmigan among her brood of chicks, and from its roof one had an unobstructed view of frozen sea and level, snow-covered tundra.

Again and again at all hours of the night we were awakened by the thudding „of the long ladder against the back of the building as the same native mounted to the roof. Then came a wait. .1 lay tense, breathless, 'while the watcher, perhaps old Papioloog in tattered squirrel skin parka, ’settled astride the ridge pole and trained his long brass telescope on the southern pack. I listened taut, waiting for the cry that would announce the sighting of a vessel.

Three times there were false alarms. Pinnacles of ice silhouetted against the southern sky had taken the form of masts. “ dmiaknuk, omiakpuk!” the shout rang through the village. The flag was run to the top of its pole announcing to hunters far out upon the frozen sea and to reindeer 1 1 orders inland on moss pastures that a boat was coming. Hours of anxious watching followed. Then, disconsolately, the flag crept down its pole, the village went about its usual activities. DAYS OF STRAIN.

Those were days of strain and tenseness for us all. White man's food was running low in the village. Daily, it is true, the Arctic Sea yielded seal and walrus in abundance, for this was the flush hunting season of the year. But the Eskimo’s palate has been spoiled by imported luxuries. He craves breadstuffs, tea, and sugar, in addition to the pure meat diet of his forefathers. Eagerly the natives awaited a fresh supply of these. For Segavana alone of all the village could still place a sack of flour conspicuously in his sod hallway, proudly advertising to his neighbours that white man’s food was still plentiful in his igloo. Our food supply was also meagre and monotonous. Omy staples remained—beans, rice, dried prunes. Nothing to tempt the weary appetite. Ten mouths since 1 had tasted fresh vegetables or fruit. Nothing but canned and dried foods. Never, it seemed to me, had the village been so noisy as in those days of late July, Sounds were multiplied a hundredfold. F.ach sled dog screaming'at its stake, cadi cry of child at play, each neighbour shouting to Iti s neighbour, took on the sound of “ Omiakpuk!” ' .. Q And then, at last, it came. At 3 o'clock in the morning of July i9,thc Herman, whaling and trading schooner from San Francisco, came nosing up through the ice pack,, her three slender masts etched black against the ghtteiing whiteness. From the schoolhouse roof the cry rang through the village, was caught up and re-cchoed - from mouth to mouth. The flag unfolded its vivid stripes in the brilliant sunlight and pandemonium broke loose in the village. Men, women, and children ran, shouted, leaped into the air, thumped one another —and we, in then midst, no saner than, the rest—adding their howls and shnekings to the tumult. T _„ GLISTENING ICE. In a group before the schoolhouse we watched the vessel crawl slowly northward, winding tortuously m and out among groat piles of glistening ice. watched eagerly, dreading tha, she would not stop at our tiny village, imt, taking advantage ol good ice con-

ditions, would push on by to Barrow. At last she was abreast of the village.- There she hesitated, came finally to a full stop. Abruptly there Was a clamorous rush back to the igloos. Figures in all directions scrambled into low sod hallways , and the 1 andscape ; was swept miraculously empty. Only a moment, however, and they reappeared," clad now in their finest garments, new parkas of spotted reindeer' and ground squirrel, fringed and tasseled with, wolverine; gay snow shirts of vivid yellow, red, and green over fur garments. Their arms, were filled with goods for barter—bundles of shining ivory walrus tusks; slabs of tough black whalebone of corset fame, from the mouth of the bowhead whale; hides of walrus, polar boar and seal: flour sacks turned inside out, crusted with flour, and stuffed with pelts of fox and ermine. Quickly the oomlaks were lifted from their scaffolds, carried to the edge of the black strip of water that separated shore from floe, and slipped into the sea. Swiftly they filled with; excited fur-clad humanity, the narrow paddles smote the water, and we were off. A few minutes and we were at the edge of the floe. The men, paddling slowly now and with infinite caution, slid the skin boats in against the knife-sharp, jagged edges of ice, and out we scrambled. The Herman had tied up to the ice a mile out from the shore. The’ older girls arid I caught hands and raced toward the vessel. Up pressure ridges thirty feet in height we went; over great up-tilted blocks, of ice we scrambled; around shallow lakes of vivid blue we hurried; leaped black cracks cradling water fathoms deep; and * came at last to open water, with the black _ bulk of the Herman drawn up against the floe, great hawsers at how and stern caught abdut pinnacles of ice to hold her snug. Up a rope ladder swaying at hep side I went. and. at the top, was greeted by Captain Ted Pederson, intrepid arctic navigator. As I withdrew my hand from his hearty grip and moved aside to make way for my husband, T saw, lying among sacks of coal and stacks of lumber on the deck, a handful of potatoes. Never had I dreamt that the lowly tuber could look so enticing! I pounced upon one, rubbed it hastily on my parka, and sunk my teeth into it.

As long as 1 live I sliall never forget the thrill of that fresh potato crunching between my teeth. The fresh fruits and nuts, the fancy cakes and bonbons with which our generous host immediately supplied us, have not the power to blot that memory from my mind.