Little wind-swept island of Herschel! We reach you to-day not by
deep-sea vessel from the westward but up through the continent by its
biggest northward-trending stream. Eighty miles through the Northern
Ocean itself from the Mackenzie mouth brings our whale-boat grating upon
the shingle. "As far as we go!" This is essentially the Island of
Whales, the farthest north industrial centre in America, the world's
last and most lucrative whaling-ground. It is well to take our bearings.
We are in latitude 69-1/2 deg. N. and just about 139 deg. west of Greenwich; we
are a full thousand miles nearer our Pole than the Tierra del Fuegan in
South America is to his. And it blows. A nor'easter on Herschel never
dies in debt to a sou'wester. Lifting itself one thousand feet above
sea-level, this septentrional shelter for ships where the seagulls wheel
at our approach, and as they wheel, whine like lost souls, is
twenty-three miles in circumference, with neither water nor fuel. For
six months every year comparative darkness wraps it around. Snow and ice
hold it fast till mid-July; and yet people with tropic isles to choose
from and green valleys where the meadow-lark sings have crowded here for
twenty years to make their home!
The most incongruous lot that Fate ever jostled together into one
corner,--who are they? The whaler of every country and complexion from
Lascar to Swede, Eskimo men and women and big-eyed babies, half-caste
hybrids of these two factors, Missionaries, and Mounted Police.
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