% SPELL oif/w ARCTIC HOLDS THEM
PIC
By Janies Montagnes
HETHER you talk to fur trap
pers, Mounted Police, mis
sionaries, prospectors, mining
engineers, anywhere in Can-
w
ada, they all tell you the same thing:
“The Arctic gets you.” They all claim
that once you have been north, you
cannot stay away. And they back up
their claims by staying just long enough
out of the Canadian northland to be
come boied with the loneliness of mod
ern uiban civilization. Then they are
oft again for somewhere north of the
railway line.
There’s John Firth, white-bearded
patriarch of the Arctic. He went to the
Canadian northland when he was 19.
fresh from Scotland, to take a post with
the Hudson Bay Company. That was
iri if 72 Add it up. He had been there
64 yeais. And once he thought he
would like to see his native Scotland
again.
With his Indian wife of a lifetime he
started out, said goodby to all his chil
dren and grandchildren. By boat they
went to Edmonton There he saw his
first automobiles, his first moving pic
tures. modern buildings. A modern
train took him as far east as Winnipeg.
It was necessary to wait there three
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He hasn't kci a city far M years.
hours lx*fore taking the train ta Mont
real to the ocean liners sailing for
Scotland.
But John Figth never took that train
to Montreal. He took the first train
back to Edmonton, the first boat back
to Fort. McPherson Not for the octo
genarian was modern civilizatiaa He
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Or look at Bill Seymour, trapper of
the Coronation Gulf region, weather
beaten, used to living in igloos, wearing
a parka most of the year, as much at
home on the sea ice of Coronation Gulf
as the Eskimos who spend the winter
seal fishing there. Go out to the city to
live? Not Bill Seymour. It’s more than
40 years since he saw a city. You can’t
pry him away from the Arctic Circle.
VOU can find plenty of white men
■*■ somewhere in Canada’s far north,
isolated from the outside world, practi
cally hermits, and some as them living
se remotely as to be hermits.
Some of them see other white men
once in a while. Some live year in
year out at or near a fur poet. Others
like to be even farther away from their
fellow-men. The loneliness of the Arc
tic has gripped them.
A few years ago the Mounties on
their annual spring patrol of Baffin Is
land found the frozen body of Hector
Pitch forth, called the loneliest man in
the world.
A veteran of the World War, he had
been gamed, shell-shocked. He ob
tained a job with a small trading com
pany. They shipped him off to remote
Cape Kater on Baffin Island.
Annually a . supply ibip came. He
took his supplies, put them in the hovel
he had built from packing cases. He
somehow stored his coal, for there are
no trees for firewood on Bdffin Island
He picked up all the driftwood he oould
find for miles about. And the years
went on. He oould have gone hack to
London, but he was satisfied.' He had
found peace and contentment. But his
eyesight was failing
His company sent him a young man
as assistant. Pitohtorth sent him back.
Thciii wub riot room in his meager
dwelling for two. There was not enough
business. His eyesight became worse.
Next summer the supply ship did not
show up' He never knew the com
pany had failed.
There were no more supplies, but he
had a stock of furs. He had to eat. The
natives who passed the post came once
in a while with seal meat, with bear
meat. Pitchforth lived. Soon the na
tives came less often.
When the following spring the Moun
ties patrolled his remote stretch of
Baffin Island shore, they found him in
his tiny shack, froren to death.
The shores of Great Bear Lake are
now becoming populated. It was not
always that way. In fact, when D’Arcy
Arden first settled on the lake there
were only Dogrib Indians.
He gave them their first trading store.
He lived with them for many years as
trader and adviser, married one of
their daughters, the belle of Great Bear
Lake. They have a fine family, Kath
leen, Sonny, Hugh and Jim.
TT was adventure that sent D’Arcy
Arden from England at the age of
25, from the aristocratic public school
and the home of his titled ancestors.
He has not seen them since. He headed
for the Yukon, land of fabulous gold
strikes. There he met the Hon. Frank
Oliver, Canadian statesman of the post
generation. Oliver advised him to go
to Great Bear Lake, remote, uninhab
ited, hard to get at, but virgin country.
He was not hmg a trader when he
became a guide for a Mountie patrol
on the trad of the Eskimo killers of two
priests in the country north and east
of Great Bear Lake. He saved the food
supplies of that patrol on the storm
tossed lake by his skillful handling of
a canoe.
Hertir Pikliiw.
“loneliest man in ihn
world.” was isolated
on Baltin Island when
supplies failed to own
through. Meat spring.
Maunties found him
froaen to death. . . .
Above, one reason
why trappers lead
lonely lives in the
Arctic —a marten
oaught in a trap.
For a time he left the shores of Grea>>
Bear Lake to act as game warden in
the 17,000-squai e-mile Wood Buffalo
Park on the border of the North West
Territories and Alberta, where the Ca
nadian government had established a
buffalo preserve, and was shipping ex
cess buffalo.
Then when the radium and silver
strikes were being made on the shores
at his former lake territory, he hied
back there. And at the log cabin
metropolis of Cameron Bay on Great
Bear Lake his Dogrib Indians located
him two years ago, with great excite
ment.
They could lead their former adviser
to a lake to the south where there was
the same smell in the rock which had
made the white men come to Great
Bear Lake. Pitchblende, the ore which
contains radium and some silver, is
supposed to have a peculiar smell. The
Indians knew of ar other lake where
this smell was pr iominant Would
D’Arcy go? He did )t waste any time,
and saying goodby to Aranmore, his
wife, and their chi’, en, he went with
his Dogribs up the :~ar River and by
little-treveled wat ways to Hot tab
Lake, 150 miles sac h of Cameron Bay.
They led him to the spot where they
had found the pitchblende smell. It was
there. And staking all he could under
the North West Territories mining
regulations, he hurried back to the re
corder at Cameron Bay. There finan
ciers who come and go all year by air
heard of his (tod. paid him $49,000 as
an option.
D’Arcy flew out to taste city life He
bought supplies, bought clothes for his
family, was introduced to Edmonton so
ciety. proved that the Arctic had not
changed his English public school back
ground. appeared well groomed wticr
ever he went, and then after 10 days
decided civilization was not foe him
He shared his money with the Dug
rib Indians, had a S3OOO house built tor
his family at Carnet on Bay. and began
prospecting in earnest on the shone* o(
ft- - * *». lakes he had so often t I
a. ui ius udici.i.