ARCTIC OUTPOSTS

Evening Star, Issue 23129, 1 December 1938, Page 16

ARCTIC OUTPOSTS

AN ANNUAL CRUISE A cruise on the Hudson Bay Company’s relief ship Nascopie through 12,000 miles of ice-laden waters of the north has been completed by a 75-year-old woman, who was greeted at Fort Ross as the oldest white person to set foot on that lonely outpost in the North-west Passage (says the ‘ New York Times ’). Mrs Susan Nason, of Medford, Oregon, who made the trip with her daughter, Miss Margaret Nason, described the journey at the Post Graduate - Hospital, where she is receiving treatment for a foot ailment. She completed the trip at Halifax, and then came up here. The voyage lasted three months.

The Nascopie, an ice-breaking freighter, makes the trip annually to the Hudson Bay Company’s northern posts to deliver supplies, take in new personnel, and collect the, fur cargo. On the 1937 trip the ship carried personnel to establish Fort Ross on Somerset Island, in the North-west Passage, The Nascopie docked only once on the 12,000-mile voyage at Churchill on Hudson Bay, but anchored as nearly as possible to the outposts and sent provisions ashore in small scows. Mrs Nason said stops were made at 30 of the company’s posts. At Thule, Greenland, the ship took on two Eskimo families, and transported them to Craig Harbour, on Ellesmere Island, the northernmost post office in the world. Here the ship also left two Royal Canadian Mounted Police who had been brought for duty at Craig Harbour. The ship also carried a party of Canadian Government geologists and other scientists to their destinations; but the passengers who attracted most attention were three brides-elect who were married aboard to two members of the outpost personnel and an explorer. One of the brides, Mrs Nason said, was a girl from Scotland, a stickler for ceremony, who wore a white satin wedding dress and veil, and even brought her wedding cake with her to the Arctic. The other brides were from Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia. Altogether there were eight women aboard the Nascopie.