RASMUSSEN DISCOVERS ESKIMO RACE’S ORIGIN

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXII, Issue 19208, 10 January 1925, Page 11

RASMUSSEN DISCOVERS ESKIMO RACE’S ORIGIN

DANE REACHES SEATTLE. AFTER TRAVELLING 20,000 MILES IN THE ARCTIC REGIONS. Knud Rasmussen, the Danish explore! and leader of tho Fifth Thule Expedition of Denmark, announced that ha will write a complete history of tho Eskimo race. The explorer arrived in Seattle on October 25 on the steamship Victoria from Nome, Alaska. Mr 'Rasmussen party travelled than 20,001) miles along the Arctic coas* of Canada am) Alaska by gasolino schooner, dog team and on fool, studying Eskimos and taking motion pictures. The journey took three years. “1 have positive proof of the origin of the Eskimo race, but regret that I cannot make public my discoveries at present,” he said. “I have proved that one can travel from Greenland, through the Canadian Arctic, Alaska., and to the coast of Siberia and he understood by all Eskimo tribes in a common language. “There arc not more than 40,000 Eskimos in all the tribes from Greenland to Siberia. In the vicinity of the North Pole I found several tribes which had never been visited before by white men. Moro than 2000 feet of motion, picture film were taken, together with a number of 'sitls. ’ Among some of the things experienced was the thrill obtained from studying the faces of Eskimos at Point Barrow, Alaska, as» they viewed some coloured motion pictures 1 flashed on a makeshift screen, fof* them, and the filming, after three months’ effort, of the aurora borealis.” A flight to the North Pole by tho navy dirigible Shcandoah would have every chance of success if a fuel base were established and mooring mast erected at Point Barrow, Mr Rasmussen, said. “The prevailing cast wind would not! trouble the big airship and the crcv/. could easily stand the 50 degrees below weather, which is less cold than in soma parts of the Dakotas.” (.ar