THE NORTH POLE MAN

Evening Star, Issue 22892, 25 February 1938, Page 11

THE NORTH POLE MAN

WILLIAM SGORESBY We hear much about the North Pole in these days, but we do not hear.a great deal of bravo William Scoresby —though a British whaling ship us> named after him, says a writer in the ‘ Winnipeg Free Press.’ He was known as the North Pole Man in his day, and well he deserved the title Born in-Yorkshire in 1760. he lived 69 strenuous years, a giant of a man over six feet in his bare feet and of extraordinary muscular strength. He was not a P.olar explorer in any official sense. His work was simply to hunt whales in the Greenland whaling grounds, and to ply a dangerous task among grey seas and towering bergs. But he was never content merely to" catch whales. He must always be exploring a few miles of sea coast, or pushing boldly north. For 30 years ho never missed a season in the north. He sailed his ship from Whitby, and proved himself the finest seaman in Europe, a born navigator, and aa intrepid as any man alive. In 1806, for instance, he pushed his ship, tho Resolution, further north than _ any ship had ever been before, gaining latitude 81 degrees, and some distance beyond, a point not passed by any other ship for years. No whaler ever took back so many whales as he, and yet. unlike all hia competitors, he would never eaten whales on Sunday. It is said he made a fortune of over £90,000. He is claimed as the inventor of ' tho crow’s nest —that look-out high up tho mast where the watchman may beep his eve open for whales. He invented, the ice-dnll. He would sometimes remain at hja post on deck for days and nights at-a time, and his name was an honoured word in the merchant service. . “Scoresby! He’s done it again! Twenty-four whales, two seals, ana two bears, and a couple of walruses! And all in thirty-two days!” “ There was never a whaler like William Scoresby. ~