HELD UP IN ICE.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXXIX, Issue 12, 15 January 1906, Page 1

HELD UP IN ICE.

TWENTY-NINE MONTHS IN OPEN BOATS.

A stirring story of perilous adventure in the Arctic regions is told by Capiain Walter Jackson, of Peterhead, who recently returned Home atte- being ice-bound in the Frozen Noith for 29 months. " We left Peterhead in July, 1903," Captain Jackson relates, " and reachel the station in Baffin Land in due course. We secured a great many walrus and seals, some of the former lidding unusually fine tusks. "The winter passed in tho usual \va> in the Arctic—visits to the native ialoos, picking up and improving my stock of the lingo and trying to convert myself to the Eskimo mode oi living. I soon got to iike raw seal and walrus steak, and the blood of the former I took upon as liquid life. MISSED THE SHIP. " At the end of the winter we looked out for the relief ship, winch-was to take me Home with my^winter s produce, but we looked in vain through tho summer till mid-August, when I left with two boats for Blackload Island (200 miles north of the station) to obtain provisions. But after worming our way tor over 120 miles through the ice we had to give it up- . ~ "We were 21 days in the opon beats, constantly surrounded by that everlasting pack ice. I shall never fcrget those three weeks of misery, with daily downpours of either rain, snow, or sleet. Even the hair rotted off our skin clothes. " Arriving back at the station atter our desperate attempt to reach Blacklead, I found that a Canadian steamer had called and left letters during our absence! She steamed in a few hours, after we left for our boat voyage. "We therefore returned to the station to face a second winter, with no fuel, no mineral oil, and very little on-munition. Our stores consisted oc a little tobacco, coffee bes-ns, and '°^in March, 1905, I sent some natives overland, promising a new rifle, if they were successful in reaching Blacklead with a letter. They reached their destination after five weeks rerilous travelling—a journey I r.ad performed in the fine weather in m-e days. The natives, however, woulo not return. As no news came from Blacklead I resolved to make another attempt with one boat only, leaving the other at the station, an.l in this, rfter incredible hardship, I succeeded but with considerable pain and prostration. REFUSED FOOD BY MISSIONARIES. "I ruptured a blood-vessel in my leg, which limb gradually turnod black, to my great alarm, and an attack of scurvy caused my gums to sotten and my teeth to become loose in their sockets, «o that to cat was to suffer. Now I learned the mystery why no ship reached us in 1904. Ine vessel was wrecked a few days atter leaving the station. "Provisions were so scarce that• l applied to the missionaries for food • but for some reason, they refused me, and 1 had to accept native biscuits for my sustenance, and live with them m their igloos like an animal, and without a doctor, of whom I stood m much need. My leg was so painful I could scarcely limp. " The summer of 1905 went by, and AV3 were beginning to despair ot getting away this year, and were preparing to endure a third winter in this dreadful clioiate, when the Theodora hove in sight. Otherwise starvation would have been the lot of the whole community."