ISACHSEN LAND 78" 47' N, Lat. 103" 50' W. Long.

In more than five years in the Arctic, plies readyfor anairlift to Isachsen travelling over the Polar Pack, discover- Land where we were to establish a joint ing new islands, Stefansson and his com- Canadian-United States weather station. panions brought back a great deal of We flew several reconnaissance flights new knowledge of the entire areas over over Isachsen Land before finding a spot whichthey travelled andforever blew that looked likely for landingan air- away that fog of misconception that the craft. Finally early in April a safe land- Arctic was a grim place where man sur- ing was effected and eventually a mound vived in spite of it. He found it to be a of some 160 tons of equipment was made friendly place, and thatit was possible on the sea ice. to live comfortably off the country, to Here we were then, in this new land travel leisurely, and toacquire that with a great mass of supplies; food of spiritual aloneness and peace found only allkinds, an airbornetractor, sleds,. in the polar regions. clothing,three dogs-one ancient male, In order to achieve this, he travelled a pregnantbitch and a six weeks old andclothed himself as theEskimo has pup; James huts, a prefabricated timber for some centuries. He lived in the tradi- house, linoleum, chemical toilets, radios tional Eskimo snowhouse, whereone of assorted kinds, electricgenerator, mayrest comfortably at sixty degrees medical stores, silexcoffee makers, trail above zero. He noted thenorthward equipment of one kind or another, kero- spring flight of the geese and other birds, sene, motor fuel, aviation gas, diesel fuel, watchedthe greatfog banks rollover lubricating oils, unleaded gas and coal, Prince Patrick Island and Cape Isachsen a complete set of weather-recording fromthe Beaufortand PrinceGustav instruments, hydrogen-making apparatus, Adolph seas. He saw the faint track of lumber, beaver board,winch, antenna the lemming and tail mark of the arctic masts, stoves, paint, nails, tools, ice cutt- fox in the snow; watched the arctic wolf ing saws, dynamite, Very pistols, an ice- teardown the caribou calves, andate cream mixer and a library of twelve withgusto the juicy haunch of the books. This was to take care of us, to muskox. He felt the soft ground smoth- make life easier and more comfortable, eredwith moss and multi-coloured so that we could do our weather observ- flowers under his feet in the short sum- ing. Everythinghad to be moved into mer, thetouch of frost on the cheek place and buildings putup and the and heard the whistle of the rising wind whole put into working order. A long andthe drone of the blizzard. He re- hard job for seven men. There was little lished it and he recorded it as a happy excitement over being in a new country existence and onein which much was never before explored and about which accomplished. This was more than thirty little is known. Why? Man and his years ago. machines? Man and his gadget thinking? It had been my pleasure to talk with Manin his desire to explore, atthe Stefansson priorto heading northward mercy of his machines? With all the in February nineteenforty-eight. My greatmound of supplies and the seven flightnorth touched briefly atGoose men, one thing had been forgotten. This Bay, Labrador,and thence continued landhad not changed; it remained the northwardover Greenland to Thule, same as whenSverdrup and Stefansson where I spent a happy evening with charted its coast. The great and beauti- Dalkild a Danish meteorological scientist, ful cloudsstill sweptover it, the bliz- and talked withOotah who had been zards still hit the mountains and roared with Peary, and others whohad travelled into the valleys, the pinched vegetation with Rasmussen. was still soft andglorious in the sum- The next daywe flew into Resolute mertime. The landfast ice still clung to Bay on Cornwallis Island. Here we re- the shores as thoughto defy the ice mained for three weeks getting our sup- breakers. The great stillness was still ISACHESEN LAND IZj here. It would never change. Only ‘man the drifting snow or brilliant under the hadchanged. He hadharnessed himself high sun, remained the same. This would to themachine, and somehow the neverchange. Therewould alwaysbe machineseemed a little tawdry, a little that spiritual aloneness to be found here, out of place,a little futile and dirty. but it was too simple, too basic; it was Nothingwas simple any more. There nolonger what man desired. He had was comfort of a sort, but not the homi- arrived here forty years after discovery, ness of asnowhouse. There were type- a stranger and an intruder in a strange writers, but gone was the effort of writ- landhe would never understand. ing what one saw and felt with the bare May 7, 1948. ALANINNES-TAYLOR” hand. Nobody sang, nobody whistled, it - *Member of the staff of a Canadian-United was a grim job. Only the land, misty in States weather station.

BOOK REVIEWS

MARINER OF THE NORTH. uncanny ability to navigate “by instinct”. By GEORGEPALMER PUTNAM. Duell, Hours, days, years of observingand Sloan, and Pearce. New York. 246 pp. soaking in the lore of the northern seas $3.50. provided his rich background of experi- ence. His bringing the damagedRoosevelt “He was not only a master mariner, but from Cape Sheridan on the north shore an uncanny ice pilot, for he was blooded of EllesmereIsland to New York is in inthe hard school of theArctic. He itself an epic of seamanship. Hiscareer knewthe covesand bays of Labrador, and life were profoundly influenced by and his native Newfoundland, the glaciers the major polar exploration of the early from which the icebergs calved, the tides twentiethcentury, and represented the andcurrents of thestraits that lead era of transitionfrom the old geogra- north and the vast ice-fields of the polar phical tothe modern scientific explor- basin. In thisforbidding region Bob ation. Bartlett spent the greater part of his life; heloved every headland and barren “Bob”Bartlett is sometimesreferred cliff’.-froman editorial in the New to as arelic of theold school, but by York Times. Andsuch was the life of misunderstandingonly. Although with- Captain “Bob” Bartlett, one of the great- outany formal scientific training he est ice navigators of all time. could see andappreciate the value of science. He wasintensely interested in Captain Robert Abram Bartlett, born in 1875 at Brigus, a small fishing and sea- scientificpolar work. Little known and faring village on therugged east coast littleheralded are his fine series of of Newfoundland, was brought up in the biologicalcollections made onthe later old tradition of the sea, the background Morrissey voyages,which have been of wooden ships and iron men. He was the hard-bitten master of the old school who commanded awe and respect in his crew as hepaced the quarterdeck; yet beneath this was a gentle heart of gold, keen,sensitive, and understanding, with a singular lovefor thethreq great corner- stones of his life, the North, the Morris- sey, and his mother. Hismotto was “Eternal vigilance is the price of success”, and his daily fare was hard work. This was the secretof his

Captain R. A. Bartlett’s schoonerEffieM. Morris- sey in the arctic ice.