Phone GREEN 392
e@ BOAT LUMBER

@ MILL WORK
SHOP AT COW BAY

KAIEN INDUSTRIES

GENERAL CONTRACTORS
INBOARDS AND ROW-BOATS

P.O. BOX 1218
@ BOAT BUILDERS
@ BOAT REPAIRS

PRINCE RUPERT, BRITISH COLUMBIA

mapped Baffin Land from the deck
of the Canadian Patrol vessel Arctic
some years before. Infatuated with
this mysterious land of glaciers, ice-
bergs, fur-clad Eskimos and mammoth
polar bears he’d made up his mind to
return and reap a rich harvest of
white fox pelts and polar bear skins
from these untutored savages who
knew nothing of the white man’s
ways, and were really ripe for pluck-
ing.

Fox Skins for a Box of Cartridges

It was virgin territory, this half
million square miles of loneliness,
where white fox skins could be
bought for a box of cartridges apiece,
or twenty white foxes for a thirty
dollar Winchester rifle—and sold for
fifty dollars a skin in New York.

Time and again strange visions had
arisen through the years to disturb his
piece of mind. Visions of a Stone Age
empire in the shadow of the Pole; of
untold wealth amassed from the backs
of polar bears and foxes. Of ships
carrying the spoils southward nearly
4,000 miles to the fur centres of New
York, and himself the uncrowned
king of this Empire of the Snows. Yet.
not till this year, the summer of
1916, had his dreams come true.
Persuaded, at last, by Janes’ stories of
“money for the taking” the hard-bitten

STATIONERY
RCA Victor Radio

Genuine Native Souvenirs

McRAE BROS. LTD.

Prince Rupert, B.C.

BOOKS

old whaler, Joe Baraga, at his home in
St. John’s, Newfoundland, had de-
cided to finance him. Almost beside
himself with delight Janes had
charted the sea-battered Kite, hired a
crew, and loaded her with two years’
supplies of provisions, ammunition,
guns, sowbelly and trinkets. Two
years from now the Kite would return
with more supplies, and carry back
the furs he had traded.

Amongst the sealskin tupeks of the
Eskimos the approach of the white
man’s oomiak had not escaped the
sharp eyes of Nukudlah, giant leader
of the Iglulirmuits. Leaping from rock
to rock he charged excited into the
encampment. “Kud-loo-nah! White
men! They are coming.” He shed his
hard-worn ahtegi for a _ fancy
wolverine-trimmed koolita and polar
bear-skin trousers.

Beside themselves with excitement
the simple children of the polar wastes
raced to and fro; talking, laughing,
wondering what treasures the whites
had brought to trade. Already shaggy
hunters were doffing ragged summer
clothes for beaded koolitas and fancy
mukluks, while women rubbed evil-
smelling grease on their cheeks, and
anointed their sleek black locks with
stale urine to make them nice and
glossy.

No sooner had the Kite dropped
anchor ere she was surrounded by a
fleet of needle-shaped kyaks and
walrust-hide oomiaks. Over the side
swarmed men, women and children
till the deck was overrun with a
horde of Stone Age savagery, though
only by the longer tails and bigger
hoods of their fur koolitas could the

NORTHERN B.C. POWER
¢o., LTD.

Electric Supplies and Merchandise

RADIOS WASHERS

RANGES
@

Prince Rupert, B.C.

REFRIGERATORS

women be distinguished from the
men.

Promptly Jen set before them a
sumptuous feed of sweet tea, ship’s
biscuit and molasses, and explained
that he was going to build a wooden
igloo ashore and fill it with guns, axes,
colored cloth and other things. And—
all he wanted in exchange were just
the fox and polar bear skins that
Nukudlah and his tribe could gather!

Loaned Their Women

When the sailors offered them pres-
ents the Eskimos were glad to leave
their women in the fo’castle for the
night for the whites must be hungry
for the feel of a woman’s body after
being so long without them, and
Nukudlah’s people believed in hospi-
tality. Next day all helped Jen and his
crew carry up boxes and bales from
the whaleboats to the wood-and-
tarpaper trading post already rising
beside Patricia Creek.

But this was merely the beginning
of their joys. A couple of days later
another, and much finer, ship, the
Albert of the Arctic Gold Company,
steamed through the shore-ice and
dropped anchor. Captain Black, wear-
ing a blue coat with glittering brass
buttons, invited them aboard, feasted
them and pointed out a tall, thin
Kud-loo-nah called Florence and told
them he, too, was going to build a

OCEANVIEW HOTEL
“You'll Like the Oceanview”

64 ROOMS, ALL WITH HOT AND COLD
WATER SHOWERS
Phone 71 Ist Ave. West
PRINCE RUPERT, B.C.

OLD EMPRESS

IRONERS

FOE:

Angelo Rossi, Proprietor

PRINCE RUPERT

THE SHOULDER STRAP