CAUGHT IN BLIZZARD

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 76, Issue 303, 23 December 1933, Page 6

CAUGHT IN BLIZZARD

ARCTIC SHIPWRECK RESCUE BY AEROPLANES VANCOUVER, Nov. 22. Captain Victor Ingrahaui, a noted Northland trader and voyagcur, left Fort Franklin, Great Bear Lake, in tho auxiliary schooner Speed, towing a scow containing fifty tons of provisions, equipment, and machinery, consigned to Cameron Bay, a remote post on the lake, and the latest of the radium and mining centres to be developed there. With Captain Ingraham were the engineer (Mr. Harry Jeb) and a •crew of two, and on board the scow were live men. It was the last trip of the season, before the freezeup. A blizzard blew up unexpectedly. The compass failed to function. Within a few hours, floes began to appear. The freeze-up was on them. Steering by the stars. Captain Ingraham sought the lee of the precipitous cliffs on the shore line. There they rode at anchor for two days. The storm continued unabated. It was impossible to make a landing. Captain Ingraham decided to «cut the scow adrift. Thon the anchor went. The schooner sprang a leak. Fire broke out in the engine-room, oil flames pouring through the hatch. Captain Ingraham endeavoured to fight his way down to assist the engineer and oiler, but was beaten back, badly burned. The fire crept towards the tanks. Captain Ingraham abandoned the craft in a rubber lifeboat. They had just pulled clear when she blew up. Tho gale increased. Bitter void set in. They had no food. For two days they drifted among the ice floes, Captain Ingraham half delirious with burns. Finally they landed. For throe days they battled against the elements along the shore until they came up with tho scow’s crew, who had beer able to save one rifle, blankets four dogs, and dried potatoes. An Arctic Hospital. Next day, three men, with the dogs, sot out for Cameron Bay. After four days they returned, exhausted. A second party ot‘ two men succeeded, making the 125 miles to the tiny trading post in six days. They went on without rest. A caribou they shot was their only food. Two aeroplanes set out from Cameron Bay and brought in tho remainder of the party. Dr. T. O. Byrne tended them, but on the second day he decided that Captain Ingraham might have to lose one of his legs which was frostbitten. He could not be sent to civilisation as both aeroplanes at Cameron Bay were ski-equipped and could not land to the south until ice had formed there. He was obliged, therefore, to sent Captain Ingraham further into the Arctic. On his advice, the pilot, Mr. Blythell, flew with Captain Ingraham 1000 miles down tho Mackenzie River to Aklavik, on the shores of tho Arctic Ocean, where he was placed in the mission hospital, in the care of the furthest north medical practitioner, Dr. J. A. Urquhart.