August 9, evening, to 10 next morning. This is a land of odds and wonders. In the morning things looked hopeless; toward evening the wind has driven away enough ice to make a narrow open lane near the shore, and utilizing this we arrived without difficulty at 8 p. m. at the long unreachable Barrow. At 9 boat takes us ashore. At 9.30 p. m. I start with an Eskimo and a seaman (Weenie) from the Bear on a collecting trip over about 3 square miles of tundra behind Barrow, and at 12.30 return to ship with four bags of skulls and bones. But sleep! Hardly any since 12.30 last night, and very little after return to-day, for due to fear of ice they called in everybody from shore before 3 a. m., and the newcomers keep on walking and talking and banging with their baggage until 5, when, fearing a return of the ice, we start once more southward, toward—it feels strange, but it is so—home. It was a remarkable good fortune, our getting there thus and getting out again, as we did, without damage.
Barrow is a good-looking and rather important place. It stretches about 2 miles along the low shore, in three clusters, the two main ones separated by a lagoon. It has a radio station, a mission hospital, and a school. There are over 200 natives here, and also quite a few whites, including Mr. Charles Brower, the trader, observer and collector, with his native wife and their family, the teacher, the missionary and his family, and the nurses.
The burial place here is the most extensive in the Eskimo territory. Taking the older parts and the new, it covers over a square mile of the tundra, beginning not far beyond the site of the hospital and extending to and beyond a small stream that flows over a mile inland. But the burials were grouped in a few spots, the rest being barren.
This extensive burial ground is now about exhausted for scientific purposes, except for such skeletons and objects as may have been assimilated—i. e. buried—by the tundra. That such exist became quite evident during our search, and they naturally are the oldest and most valuable. We secured two good skulls of this nature. They were completely buried, only a little of the vault showing, and had there been time we should doubtless have found also parts of the skeletons. The skulls were discolored brown.
Of the later skeletal material we found but the leavings, the best having been carried off by other collectors. There were remnants of hundreds of skulls and skeletons, but for the most part so damaged as not to be worth saving. Nevertheless our diligent midnight search was not in vain, and we brought back four sacks full of specimens, the Eskimo carrying his with the utmost good nature. The destruction here is due to sailors and other whites and to dogs, foxes, and reindeer.
The reindeer herds, going in hundreds over the ground, help materially to scatter and damage the bones. So, the older material gone, while the more recent burials are, at least so far as the younger element is concerned, quite worthless to science, containing many mix bloods of all sorts—even occasionally with the negro (men from the wrecked whaleboats). The collection now secured was the last one possible from this locality, except through excavation.
Tuesday, August 10. The boat is now crowded. We lost one woman and got three; also about five or six men—newspaper, movie, radioman, a dog teamster, a trapper. Quite a variety, in every way, and most are to go with us at least as far as Nome. They will have to hang up two hammocks in our little cabin each night, and some must sleep elsewhere.
Packing the whole morning. Five boxes. My man of last night helping, a fine, big young fellow. This aid in the work is a great boon to me, and the transportation of the many specimens by the Bear down to Seattle or San Francisco will be a fine service to the Institution.
The older of us, that is those who have been longer on the ship, feel like veterans and are drawn closer together. The new lot, heterogeneous, do not attract, particularly one of the women. An older one, evidently a well-liked nurse, goes off at Wainwright, which we reach once more at 8 p. m. Here goes off also Jim Allen, the trader, who is a good fellow in a rough shell and whom I learned to like. He helped us all a good deal while in the ice.