Alaska Ho!
While other ships heading into the Canadian Arctic from Alaska
were trapped in the severe ice conditions of 1913, Alaska and Mary Sachs
managed make some progress. By creeping slowly along the shore, moving ahead
a little whenever the wind and tide loosened and shifted the ice, they succeeded
in getting as far as Collinson Point on the north coast of Alaska, about ninety
miles west of the Alaska-Yukon boundary. "September 10. Decided in conference...to
winter here where schooners can be hauled up safely" (R.M.Anderson Diary)
There the men of the Southern Party built a small wooden hut,
using lumber brought from Nome, and banked with sod, and this became their headquarters
for their first Arctic winter. Diamond Jenness, the Expedition anthropologist,
used this time in learning the dialects of the local people. The ships' crews
joined the scientists on hunting and collecting trips, visited the other frozen-in
ships down the coast, and all learned how to handle the teams of dogs to be used
on the spring surveys.
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