" MARION " EXPEDITION TO DAVIS STRAIT AND BAFFIN BAY 13 



for the colonial agent of the district presented the officers of the 

 Marion with a paper bag full of fine large radishes that he had 

 raised. There were no dogs about the town because the fiords do not 

 freeze up solidly in Avinter, and the rocky hills bordering the fiords 

 are not good for sledge travel. Due to the absence of the fierce 

 Eskimo dogs, it is possible to keep goats and ducks at Godthaab, and 

 a number of these creatures were seen wandering about the town. 



Besides some local commerce Avith near-by villages by means of 

 coasting craft, a number of fine Danish Government steamers make 

 calls at Godthaab each year. The latter vessels carry official passen- 

 gers and freight to and from Copenhagen, serving, we were told, all 

 of the principal Greenland ports. 



Our first stop in Greenland brought home to us the fact that the 

 land is a closed country, open only to certain Danish officials and to 



(ii iiiTiiAAi; 



FiGUKB 8. — The principal industry of this Danish colonial vilhige is fishing. The build- 

 ing in front of which six people are standing is the home and office of the local colo- 

 nial agent. Godthaab, being the capital of South Greenland, has also a number of 

 other Government houses, but they are located farther back from the sea. 



scientists who are vouched for by their own governments and ap- 

 proved of by the Danes. The natives live like wards of the Govern- 

 ment on an enormous naturally isolated reservation. Our pleasant 

 experiences at Godthaab, as well as at other places in Greenland, 

 made us regret that the country is not open to at least the more 

 adventurous and hardier class of tourists. Each year a certain num- 

 ber of such people could undoubtedly be induced to visit and examine 

 the more accessible villages, ice fiords, mountains, and other wonders 

 of the historic land that was first colonized from the north of Europe 

 five centuries before Columbus discovered the New World. 



All liberty was up at noon. Right after dinner the Marion .shifted 

 anchorage to where a small stream from near-by mountains rushed 

 down into the fiord. The afternoon was spent watering ship and 

 dumping into the fuel tanks the last of the deck load of barreled 



