THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 581 



especially among those men in the towns who have little experience 

 outside of them, I have found hero stories not only popular but 

 believed in — even the one of ''the Rescue of the Starving Whalers 

 at Point Barrow." 



So I cite for my support — and do it gladly, for it invites atten- 

 tion to a delightful and instructive book — Archdeacon Hudson 

 Stuck's summary of the incident on page 236 of "A Winter Circuit 

 of Our Arctic Coast" (New York, 1920). He is more apologetic 

 than I, not entirely, I trust, through temperament but partly be- 

 cause he made but one journey along the open north coast of Alaska 

 and himself found it uncomfortable as compared with the sheltered 

 forest trails of the Yukon valley where the thermometer may drop 

 low but the wind seldom rises high. He comes to the conclusion 

 that this so-called relief expedition was "creditable" but useless, so 

 far at least as starvation was concerned: "It was evident that 

 the stories of starvation were untrue (Mr. Brower tells me that 

 he had warehouses full of frozen caribou carcasses) and indeed the 

 condition of the deer (driven to Point Barrow by the "rescue" 

 expedition) was such that they would not have afforded much food 

 until they could be fattened. Yet the intent was praiseworthy." 



Mr. Brower (who was living at Barrow then and has been ever 

 since) has told me that in addition to the storehouses full of meat 

 there were hundreds and perhaps thousands of caribou carcasses 

 scattered over the prairie in the vicinity that were allowed to rot or 

 to be eaten by birds and beasts. And this is the uniform story of 

 the men I have seen who were there, whether whaling captains or 

 ship's officers, traders or Eskimos. 



It was my intention not to use any of the dried meat for man 

 or dog during the winter beyond an occasional meal for the Es- 

 kimos who are very fond of dried meat. Storkerson and I made 

 as careful an estimate as we could of the amount of fresh meat 

 eaten per day by our seventeen people at the two camps and about 

 fifty dogs, and came to the conclusion that about forty or fifty 

 more ovibos were needed to take us up to the time of starting for 

 the ice trip, with some left over for the women who would be alone 

 at home for a few weeks when all the men were getting the spring 

 work started. There were several herds in the neighborhood. 

 One of these appeared at a distance to have between thirty and 

 forty animals in it. There were other herds nearer but as it is 

 more convenient to kill a whole herd, we decided on this one. On 

 October 26th Storkerson, Castel, Noice, Lopez and Emiu went out, 



