stefansson-wrangel-09-26-001-053

38

Hadley noted in Wrangell Island that the swelling
and other symptoms of illness developed most rapidly with those
men who ate the most pemmican, and in consequence the least seal
or bear meat. The situation was not thoroughly understood at
the time even by Hadley, and his own escape and that of the
Eskimos was due merely to their general notion that fresh food was
better than "canned stuff”. Also it was a matter of taste. The
Eskimos and Hadley preferred the fresh meat, and some of the rest
fell into their tastes early, which kept them freer than the others
from the symptoms of the disease - wholly free, I believe, in the
case of those who lived mainly on fresh meat. Hadley and the
Eskimos were entirely free from every symptom of naphritis.

¶ On the reasons for the illness the opinion of Munro differs somewhat from that of Hadley. Munro
considers that the most active was the freest from the disease, exercise and fresh air being the preventives. He also says
there was a peculiar tast to some of the water, presumably from chemicals in the dust of the island
that had flown on the snow.

We found (Hadley continues) millions of ducks and
gulls at Cape Waring. We immediately went to the rookery three
miles from camp, but there was not a crowbill in sight though there
were plenty of gulls. I shot twelve gulls, one for each of the
party, and then returned to camp where McKinlay was waiting for me
to return with the team and fetch the sick. I put one gull for
each of them on the sled and he started back. The native caught
a seal during the day, which put us on Easy Street for the time.
Next day McKinlay returned from our old camp with the rest and I
thought a few days' feeding on ducks and duck soup would bring them
around all right. They were swelling up more and more all the
time. I put this down partly to the fact that they lay too much
in their houses, never going out. When they made tea they would
dig snow from the side of the house for the water.

Hadley tells elsewhere that they did not think it
worth the bother to build log cabins where they could have burned
wood in open fireplaces, but lived in houses with snow walls and
canvas roofs, burning in primus stoves kerosene they had brought
ashore from the Karluk, or else seal feat that might otherwise have
in used as food.

We got ducks and seals most every day and later three
ugrugs (bearded seals) and one small walrus. Eventually I told the
native to build a small umiak so that when the ice left the beach
we could go after walrus, he and I. But he thought a kayak (one-