The Nome Nugget

Hubbard Arctic Expedition Prepare for Arctic Trip

Hubbard Arctic Expedition Back Nome King Is.

Father Bernard Hubbard, known as the "Glacier Priest", and the members of his Father Hubbard Arctic Expedition, returned to Nome early Sunday morning aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Northland, Captain Frederick A. Zeigler, from a winter spent on King Island, in Bering Sea west of Nome.

Members of his party included Ed. Levin, Ken Chisholm, and Bernard Stanley, the youth who acted as radio operator for the short wave station operated by the Expedition during the winter on the island.

Many of the older members of the King Island Eskimo tribe also returned to Nome on the Cutter. The balance of the tribe are expected to leave the Island Monday or Tuesday in their motor-powered skin oomiaks, and come to Nome.

While on the island thousands of feet of movie film were taken of the life and customs of the Eskimos, besides many thousands of still photos.

Messrs. Levin and Chisholm inaugurated athletic courses for the children and kept up a constant hum of activity during the long winter months, since October last year.

Of great help to the King Islanders will be the modern concrete ramp and dock constructed by the expedition to facilitate handling of supplies shipped to the island. Some twenty tons of supplies were understood to have been unloaded the other day from the steamer Derblay consigned to the King Island Co-operative store on the island. The supplies were stored for use next winter, before the annual migration to Nome commenced.

Gymnastics were especially interesting to the youth of King Island reported instructors Levin and Chisholm, and surprising advance in health conditions and bodyculture were noticeable after the winter course. It was further reported that one King Islander had drowned during the winter, when he fell into an open lead in the ice while out hunting.

Ice conditions were much the same as usual, they reported. "We wouldn't have missed the experience of seeing and feeling thousands of tons of ice jammed and thrust about by the currents during the winter season," said the members of the expedition.

"The thrill of watching an ocean of ice being thrust up into the air and crumble and fall under the terrific pressure of the Arctic currents, was one which we shall never forget," they said.

"The danger of hunting and carrying on an existence for the people of King Island is one of the hardiest examples of civilization it has been our privilege to participate in. The force of the ice floes grinding and crunching during the long nights, seemed as if the currents wished to literally drive King Island out of the Bering Sea and into the sky. However, the rock island resisted all attempts, and still sits out in Bering Sea, a visible monument to the creative and industrious life of the wonderful people who inhabit it."

It is understood the Father Hubbard Arctic Expedition will stay over in Nome until after the 4th of July, and then set their course on another line—a skin-boat voyage from Nome to Demarkation Point many miles East of Point Barrow in the Arctic Ocean.