ABOVE FROZEN SEAS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19760, 10 April 1926, Page 11

ABOVE FROZEN SEAS

CAPTAIN WILKINS’S FLIGHT.

A THRILLING EXPERIENCE

(Press Association —By Telegraph—Copyright.)

NEW YORK, April 8. 4 nu#t«gje from Fairbanks states that Captain Wilkins and Lieutenant Eielson Hew 150 miles beyond Point Barrow before landing at Point Barrow, No land was sighted, but unbroken stretches of ice were noted as possible places for alighting. The flight to Point Barrow last week was made in approximately four hours. The landing was effected in a blizzard, which continued for two days, and made matters difficult for taking off. Cigarettes seemed to be the chief worry of Captain Wilkins and Lieutenant Eielson, as they did not take any with them, expecting to get some from Chareiss Browner, a veteran trapper at Point Barrow. The latter’s supply, however, was exhausted. The men were not forced to go without, however, as a woman writer, Miss Wallace, who is wintering at Point Barrow, came to their rescue. The fliers arrived back on Wednesday.—Reuter.

VANCOUVER, April 7. For two days following Captain Wilkins’s tour into the Arctic a blizzard swept the coastline east and west of Point Barrow. Monday morning opened clear. Lieutenant Eielson started his motor and taxied up and down the icefield, but was unable to rise owing to the drifted snow. The Esquimeaux cleared a track, and the following day the flight was commenced. Everything went well until they passed Wiseman. Then head winds took them off their course, and necessitated a landing at Circle City. Describing their slide down the hill from the crest of the Endicott Mountains towards the Arctic, Captain Wilkins said that they encountered the most rugged scenery ever witnessed. Knife-edge and saw-tooth ranges were piled one after another for undetermined miles. Each serrated horizon was more, terrible than the one behind. Finally they came out into the foothills. The frozen white tundra lay ahead, reaching as far as the eye could see. Flying faster than they had reckoned on, they crossed the coastline about 15 miles east of Point Barrow, and the ice was below them before they realised it. “The results show,’’ he said, “that we were flying 100 miles an hour. We continued seaward for 75 minutes, and it was two and a-half horns after we passed Point Barrow that we returned. The utmost position reached northward was 125 miles beyond Point Barrow. Beyond that we could see 75 miles over the ice hummocks ” This is at least 100 miles further than any human being has ever before penetrated beyond the Alaskan coast.—Sydney Sun Cable.