PERILS OF THE ARCTIC

Evening Star, Issue 22798, 5 November 1937, Page 11

PERILS OF THE ARCTIC

LITTLE HOPE FOR LOST RUSSIANS FOH AND TRAVEL DIFFICULTIES The Russian airmen were following a course which should have brought them somewhere between Point Barrow, the most westerly cape of Alaska, and the mouth of the Mackenzie River, 2,000 miles to the east. If they have been compelled to land on the ice pack and have not reached the shore, it will in all probability, be somewhere directly north of Point Barrow (writes E. C. Trelawney-Ansell in the London ‘ Daily Weather conditions in this region at this time of the year are extremely bad. From now on those terrific blizzards known as “ howling northers ” are frequent. Sweeping down from the Polar regions, these gales strike with such force that a man has to lie fiat on the ground to prevent himself from being blown,away. The region from the shores of Arctic Alaska northwards to a distance of 150 miles will be covered with pack ice. These are fragments of ice 100yds to 150yds across. 'Beyond them lies a belt of broken field ice—pieces a mile across stretching for another 50 miles; north of this is outspread the Polar icefield itself. _ Iri this part of tho world no Eskimo or white man would attempt to between May and the end of November, either over the tundra or the ice. Not till the end of November will the ice have formed a field sufficiently solid and the snow packed hard enough on the surface to hold a man travelling with a dog team. The position of Levanevski and his companions, therefore, if they are on the ice, is one of the utmost peril. The ice pan may break up or be driven hither and thither by currents and winds. If a norther blows up, the sea will wash over the ice. Whatever the sea wets will freeze immediately, and ho living thing could survive more than a few hours. The airmen, of course, will have no means of sheltei A dog sled or a large hide boat may Serve to break the wind when Eskimos go hunting whales Up the long leads in the icefield. But parties of Eskimos numbering as many as 40 or 50, well equipped to face the known dangers, have gone out on such trips and never been heard of again. It must be borne in mind that no one, even accustomed to severe cold in his own country, is able to travel in Arctic conditions unless fully prepared and .supplied with all the equipment of an Eskimo. . , . 1 Contrary to general opinion the igfoo or Eskimo hut is not built from ice but from snow Thus, even if a castaway knew how to build such a shelter for himself, he could not build it for lack of snow. When the Eskimo goes out on the ice after whales he takes nothing with him except a double kit of furs—fur parkas, fur trousers, and so on. He wears them all, and even then, by the time he has slept for two or three hours leaning against an ice hummock, he is barely able to move his limbs again. The (Russian airmen in flying kit only, now that the short Arctic summer is ended, have no adequate clothing for exposure on the ice.

I knew a white trader who with four or five Eskimos was driven on an ice pan out into the Behring Sea. He was rescued by the United States Revenue cutter Bear on the fifth day. He Was the only man left alive. Searching these ice fields at_ this time of the year by aeroplane will be n thankless if not hopeless task. Visibility will be obscured b.v mist, blizzards will be frequent, and the rescuers themselves will run as great a risk as the lost airmen of being forced down bv a norther. 'if the Russian aeroplane has survived the blizzard which, according to wireless massages, compelled them to drop to 4,000 ft. they may have been forced down on the Alaskan mainland. Here conditions are scarcely more favourable. HORRORS OF MAINLAND. It would mean descent either on the coastal belt of tundra, or on the Endicott range of mountains, or finally in the vast forests which stretch southwards from the mountains to the Yukon . River. , . , , The tundra is a morass or musn-room-shaped mosshags known as muskegs. They spring up from swamps, which are frozen over by the end of August or the first week in September. After the first week in August, in all this dismal waste there is no life of any description, either feathered or four-footed. The millions of water birds, gulls and ptarmigan, herds of cariboo which may visit the swamps in the open weather, have all gone south. There is nothing with which to make a fire or with which to build a shelter for an area stretching 2,000 miles east and west and about 150 to 200 miles in depth. ... Travel over the tundra is an impossibility at present Not even an Eskimo could make five miles a day over the muskegs. Chances of escape are therefore as small here as on the ice, since the cold is equally intense and the chances of help from any Eskimo equally remote. . In all the 2,000 miles between Point Barrow and the Mackenzie there is not a population of more than 600 Eskimos and SO whites. Of the Eskimos about 200 are at Point Barrow, 200 at the mouth of the Mackenzie River, and the balance, in communities of from 10 tp 20, are scattered along 2,000 miles of coast line, and not one of them will be likely to be travelling for another three months. Rescuing airmen will have even greater difficultly in locating the missing Russians in this region than they would have over the ice, as the figures of men and machine are unlikely to show up so clearly against such a ground. It must be remembered that the rescue aeroplanes flying from Nome ■or Fairbanks in Alaska start nearly 1.000 miles from the Arctic shores. Am elaborate organisation for refuelling is likely before methodical search can be undertaken, and the dangers of any delay are obvious. If Levanevski’s men have succeeded both in crossing the Arctic Sea and the tundra they may, through loss of altitude owing to the storm, have struck the Endicott Range. Here again conditions are dangerous to a degree. _ The mountains are even more precipitous than the Alps. In the event of the plane having reached as far south as the great forests between the Yukon River and the Endicott Range, then the chances of the party’s safety are greater Forest country presents its own special difficulties. The chance of being seen by rescuers from the air becomes more slender, but a party’s prospects of protecting themselves against cold and storm are much improved. As to the cold, however, it should be noted that no spot in the world—not even the North Pole—experiences such intense cold as this particular area, where it is,not unusual for the glass to be from 60deg to 90deg below zero for days on end. But in the forest, with fuel and sue,ter available, it would be possible for man to live for some time If tho party are there and were able to reach the Ko.v-u-kok River within the next two weeks, they could raft themselveti downstream until they reached a settlement. If once they could reach even an Indian village on the .river barks they would have made a fortunate escape from well-nigh overwhelming perils.