AN ARCTIC JOURNEY.

Colonist, Volume LI, Issue 12488, 15 March 1909, Page 4

AN ARCTIC JOURNEY.

Captain Mikkelseri recently returned from a lone Arctic journey. Nearly three years ago he sailed from Victoria (British Columbia) in a little ship, and made his way through Bearing Strait , and onward over icy seas to Flaxman ' Island, a distance of about 10,000 ■ miles. - The object of his voyage was ■ to test the old Eskimo story that an ' Arctic continent lies north of the far- j away Flaxmau Island. The island, I where 60 or 70 Eskimos live, was reached in September, 1906, and here the expedition took up its winter quarters. In the summer of 1907 they steered the little ship into the pack ice, and took soundings whether the sea bed would support the probability of land further north. They found that the sea-bed dipped abruptly to a great depth, suggesting that no land lay to -the north. The ship was destroyed in the ice, and Captain Mikkelsen sent his crew home in a whaling vessel, and with a sledge and ten dogs, set out on a lonely journey along the ice-bound coast to Voldez, the nearest point from which he could get a boat to Seattle. He carried provisions sufficient for 600 miles of the distance,' and after that depended on the Eskimos , and ■what game he could kill. "It was, I suppose, the longest journey ever made that way,'' he said, in describing the trip, "and it took me five months and-a half. At night I put up a little tent and slept in a bag. It .was in the depth of winter, and in the middle of the day it was no lighter than.it is in London now" between four and five in the afternoon. The. light lasted only four hours or so a day, and for fortythree days I never saw the sun at ail. Instead I had the moon, and very enjoyable it was to tramp, along in the bright moonlight. But at dusk the . effect was very curious, for then the moon threw no shadow, and I went along warily, unable to see whether I was on the verge of ahollow, or within arm's length of a wall of ice. Altogether I had 25 dogs, but at times I. ran so short of food that I had to kill a "dog and use it for food."