470 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 



observed by members of the expedition. I have written reports 

 on this subject from Hadley and Levi and verbal reports from 

 others, recorded by myself. These reports give the names of seven 

 Eskimos of various ages, from a total of about one hundred who 

 have light eyes. It was the general opinion of my men, some of 

 whom had associated with the Eskimos of Alaska for over twenty 

 years, that there is a difference in physical appearance between 

 the Prince Albert Sound group and that of the Alaska and Mac- 

 kenzie River Eskimos, the difference being in the direction of simi- 

 larity to Europeans. This is rather difficult to demonstrate and 

 may easily be argued. Certainly there are many Prince Albert 

 Sound people who are so typically Eskimo that they would pass 

 unnoticed in Alaska. 



I have emphasized in various places that although there have 

 been hundreds of children born during the last fifty years on the 

 north coast of Alaska and around the Mackenzie River of Eskimo 

 mothers and white fathers, I have heard of only two cases of half 

 whites with light eyes and have seen none. Extremely light eyes 

 occur among quadroons where the mother is half white, but none 

 of these eyes are really blue but would be described as "greenish 

 gray." A very good example are the children of Mr. Storkerson. 

 Mrs. Storkerson's father is a blue-eyed Dane, Captain Charles 

 Klinkenberg, and Mrs. Storkerson has eyes as brown and hair 

 as black as any Eskimo but features that are in general European- 

 like. Mr. Storkerson is a blue-eyed Norwegian. Their three chil- 

 dren have eyes lighter than their father's or grandfather's, not blue, 

 however, but a greenish gray. 



When I was at the hospital at Fort Yukon for several months in 

 1918 I made extensive inquiries as to the children of mixed mar- 

 riages where the father had been white and the mother either a 

 full blood Athabasca Indian or a half-blood. Through the interest 

 of the late Archdeacon Hudson Stuck and Dr. Grafton Burke I 

 gathered much hearsay evidence on this subject. No person from 

 whom I was able to inquire had seen or heard of a half-Indian half- 

 white child that had eyes of any other color than brown or "dark 

 hazel." Of the children that were three-quarters white and one- 

 quarter Indian the majority had brown eyes, but of those that did 

 not have brown eyes every one had eyes described to me as of 

 the same greenish gray sort as the eyes of Mr. Storkerson's chil- 

 dren. One of these children I saw myself and by good light I 

 ascertained that this was the color. 



Whatever the explanation, it is certainly interesting to find that 



