A Trip to the Icy Wastes of Baffin Island

Franklin Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 20, 21 February 1940, Page 5

A Trip to the Icy Wastes of Baffin Island

ONE CALL A YEAR AN ARCTIC OUTPOST IT) WHITE PEOPLE LIVE THERE There is a truism that one half of the population of the world does not know how the other half lives. Residents of New Zealand often are reminded that they live in God’s own country but sometimes it is difficult to convince them that they do. While New Zealand is the southernmosl pari of Die British Empire, let ns lake readers oil a pen voyage Lo one nf (lie northernmost posts of Canada —Pangnirlung, on the east, coast of Baffin Island in lire Arctic Circle — a port where. IP while people eke out a living. II will he recollected that about a year ago Mr 11. Dell of Pukekohe, and Ids daughter. .Mrs It. Schofield. of Waiau I’a. loured parts of Canada and California and while on tour contacted I lie manager of the Fur Salon of the Hudson’s Bay Company al Vancouver. Mrs Frances A. Hatch., In conversation Mrs Hatch learned that Mr Dell and Mrs Schofield came from New Zealand, Hie southern oulposl of the British Empire. 'You come from the far south and my company operates in the far north,’’ she remarked. Quite recently Mr Dell received a Christmas card and Mrs Schofield a. lovely almanac from their friend in Vancouver, and it is the photograph on the almanac that makes possible I his interesting little story. The photograph shows the arrival at Pangnirlung in September of the Hudson's Bay Company’s supply ship, H.M.S. Nascope, which makes a 10,000 mile' Irip each year, carrying supplies ami mail.

One EVia.il Delivery a Year Pangnirlung Post surrounded by snow-capped hills, .1000 to JfiOO feel high, on 11 1 (• easl coast of Baffin island, is located on the Arctic Circle, i>-~t i miles by boat from Montreal. Arclie night descends in the middle of December and’lasts until the end of January: the other extreme is reached in June and July, when it is perpetual day. During this long day native children are seen running around any hour of the day or night. Temperatures vary from 00 degrees below zero in winter to 00 degrees above in summer. The short summer season and lack of soil makes it impossible to raise vegetables. Growth is confined lo moss and a few Arctic Hewers.

The lota I white population is 15; Ihe Eskimos number 'O2. There is a delaclmienl of Royal Canadian .Mounted Police, while Hie seltlemenl. has one doctor, three nurses and an electrically-lighted hospital. Pang-rh-tung is Ihe largest settlement in Ihe Eastern Arctic. There are some 20 buildings which are healed with coal and lighted with gasoline or coal o i imported at great cost. The natives burn seal oil for heat and ligiil. There is only one mail delivery a year, hut there is constant communication through a private commercial radio station erected in 19.‘18. Pangnirfung, in Eskimo, means “1 wo-year-old deer.” The Hudson’s Bay Company was incorporated on May 2, 1670.