WORST IN HISTORY

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 18956, 5 March 1936, Page 10

WORST IN HISTORY

NORTH AMERICAN WINTER 1000 PERSONS PERISH ARCTIC CONDITIONS VANCOUVER, Feb. 23. North America ‘has encountered the worst winter within living history, marked by average temperatures lower than anything previously recorded since registrations began 200 years ago. More than a thousand persons were frozen to death or died of exposure in the northern half of the United States and Canada. There were hundreds of instances of livestock caught in blizzards and frozen stiff-legged as they stood, utterly lifelike, yet lifeless. In " a manner unprecedented the Arctic conditions came southward for 2000 miles.

Years ago Dawson City in Klondike was held up as among the conspicuous cold spots of the earth’s habitable surface, but figures were achieved in new lows this winter in a dozen States of America which equalled and surpassed the worst that the Frozen North could provide. The weather map last week showed an average temperature of 40 below zero prevailing over that half of North America lying north of the Mexico line.

Butte and Helena in Montana hold the record of 68 below on several succeeding days, with an average for the entire week of 65 below.

At 60 below, aeroplane operation became exceedingly troublesome, for wheels and other portions of the landing gear froze solid. NIAGARA ICE-FALLS There were three weeks at Winnipeg when the glass never rose above 25 below, and 40 to 50 below zero were quite common.

This was accompanied by stinging winds which almost stopped transport and all outside activities. The entire population literally devoted itself to the business of keeping warm. Through Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and on into Ontario and Quebec, railway and highway tie-ups were complete in some areas. There arc highways in Central Ontario that will ont be cleared until the warm spring sunshine of midApril. Niagara Falls were completely frozen. Hardy hikers, breasting the hurricane, walked over the ice below the falls. Farmers in lowa and Dakota, facing a famine in ,coal and wood, burned corn cobs and stalks to warm their houses, which were banked to the eaves with snow.

Clayton Brown, 22 marooned for 40 hours on an ice fioe in Lake Michigan at 10 below and with a blizzard raging, watched his father-in-law and a friend slowly freeze to death.

Brown, himself, vainly tried ,to rescue his two companions bv beating them to keep them moving. He then crawled four miles to the shore on his hands and knees, across the ice. Doctors amputated both Ills legs.

Vancouver thermometers kept above zero, but 2UO miles inland in central British Columbia, temperatures of 50 to 65 below were the rule.