CHAPTER V 



NATIVES OF EASTERNMOST SIBERIA 



ALIGHT northwest air was stirring, hardly potent 

 to ripple the water of the Arctic as we lay near 

 the beach at Welen. The anchorage was safe 

 enough if the wind was very gentle, or if it blew from the 

 south; but should it increase even to a moderate breeze 

 we should be obUged to put out to sea, as the open road- 

 stead offered no shelter whatever, and many a ship had 

 been driven ashore at this point. 



Departing from here, it was our aim to reach Wrangell 

 Island, about three hundred miles away, in the Arctic 

 Ocean, latitude 71 north, longitude 178 west, to hunt 

 walrus and polar bear. 



All the voyaging in the frozen ocean of the north is 

 dependent upon the movements and condition of the ice- 

 packs, which in summer melt and withdraw sufficiently 

 northward to permit of traffic to a considerable extent 

 around the shores of the continents bordering on the 

 Polar Sea. But ice moves also at the caprice of the wind, 

 and offers, in addition to the sudden and violent storms 

 which prevail, hazard to all navigation. 



The Arctic ice is generally low-lying, comparatively 

 shallow fields or floes, in no way comparable in thickness 

 with the icebergs detached from great glaciers on Alaskan 

 shores. The polar ice-pack, by which is meant the per- 

 ennial body of ice surrounding the Pole, never entirely 

 disappears. It is formed primarily by the freezing of the 



(74) 



