Crimson Saga of Ice-Lound
apfin Land

By
PHILIP H. GODSELL
F.R.G.S.
Noted Arctic traveller and explorer, author
of “Arctic Trader”, “The Romance of the

Alaska Highway", cte.,

etc.

The Murdering Messiah, the Knife-wielding Henchmen, and the Long Arm of

[N SCREAMING fury the polar bliz-
sard roared across the starlit glaciers and
saw-toothed peaks of ice-girt Baffin Land.
Within their snow-wulled igloos fur-clad
Eskimos leapt and cavorted to the boom-
ng reverberations of polar bear - gut
irums, guttural grunts falling from rub-
yery lips as they brandished ivory-shod
jarpoons and went through the mum-
nery of stalking the seal and polar bear
0 ©Nulialik, the underwater goddess,
vould take pity and send polar bear and
eal to fill their empty meat-pots.

His unkempt locks reeking with rancid
year fat, Neuktuk squatted amongst a
iuddle of Mogol-faced women and chil-
lren, turning over the grease-stained
ages of a ragged Bible given him by the
lack-coated missionary—mysterious sym-
ol of white man magic he couldn't
inderstand.

It was Christmas Day, and the Keve-
ukmuit village at Home Bay on the
hores of lonely Baffin Land, three thou-
and miles from the distant world called
ivilization, lay clamped in the iron grip
rf Arctic darkness. The stone meat-pots
i the tribe were empty. In vain, shaggy
1unters faced blinding blizzards out on the
ce-fields in search of nanuk, the polar
ear. In vain broad-hipped women in
volverine- trimmed koolitans crouched
lour after hour over the breathing holes
f natchuk, the seal. A blighting curse
iad settled on the land that God forgot,
efusing these hungry children of the
olar wastes meat and blubber to keep
ody and soul together.

Flailed by biting blizzards the Mounted Police patrol continued
indomitably forward.

SIGHTEENTH EDITION

the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

It was then that Neuktuk, head angat-
kuk, or medicine man, of the Stone Age
tribe bethought himself of the Bible.
Within its tattered covers the black-coated
kablunat had told him lay the secret that
would forever banish depressions, poor
fur hunts and low fur prices from the
igloos of the Inninuié.

The blackcoat had told him of Jesus—
head medicine man and angatkuk of the
whites, who could raise the dead, heal the
blind, walk on water and, some day, would
return again to earth. To Neuktuk’s
primitive mind, steeped in Eskimo super-
stition, it bore a strong resemblance to
the witchcraft of their own angatkuks
who would go into a trance, project their
spirit bodies through the skies to look for
caribou, and order the animals to come
and be killed to save the Eskimos from
starving.

Sometimes these same Eskimo medi-
cine men would go into a trance, appear
to die, and come to life again with won-
derful visions from the spirit world. In
fact, Neuktuk reflected as he sought in-
spiration from the magic Bible he couldn’t
read or understand, he, too, must be pretty
close to this Jesus since he also had done
a little aerial scouting when in a trance.
Ti only he could master the mysteries of
that magic Bible and unfold the secrets
contained within these grease-smeared
pages! Perhaps if he got his friend, Ka-
tauchak, to pound him over the head with
a club it would shake up his mind and
he’d get what the blackcoat called “the
light of understanding”.

a

“There’s something wrong with my
head,” he turned to the cowled figure of
Katauchak gazing moodily at the empty
pots. “My head doesn’t work the way it
should. Hit me with this so that I can
get what the blackcoat called ‘the light
of understanding’.”’

Katauchak’s snakey eyes flickered with
mingled surprise and malice as he took
the proffered harpoon handle, bethought
himself of past quarrels with the medicine
man, raised it and brought it down with
a resounding thwack on the shaggy head
of the angatkuk.

As Neuktuk collapsed in a heavy heap
on the icy floor, Katauchak, for good
measure, wielded the weapon again, the
hollow thud echoing back from the sooty
walls, bringing a stream of blood trick.
ling from the open mouth of the senseless
medicine man.

For a while it seemed to the owl-eyed
audience as though their leader had de-
parted forever the troubles of this icy
sphere, and that his spirit had gone per-
manently to reside in the land of ghosts.

At last Neuktuk opened a pair of bleary
eyes, heaved himself groggily on his
haunches, drew a furred arm across his
blood-smeared face and announced to his
startled audience that he’d visited the
spirit world. Again his snaky eyes sought
the Bible.

“I have seen the light!” he told them.
Dig up your seal caches, fill the blubber
pots and dance to the honour of natchuk,
the seal, so he'll come readily to your
harpoons. Today, the blackcoats say, the

Lonely village of Home Bay, scene of mysterious rites that forced Mounted
Police to make a thousand mile patrol in the depths of Arctic winter.

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