Northwest History. Alaska. Eskimos.

• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1936
• Subjects: Eskimos; frozen tallow; whalebone; Point Barrow; Alaska; reindeer; natives; death; Barter island; Griswald Collins; Juneau; the arctic slope; wolves; Northwest; Pacific > History > 20th century; Arctic; Pacific; Warden; Barrow; Barter Island; eskimo*
• Online Access: http://content.libraries.wsu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/clipping/id/90972

Eskimos Kill Wolves Easily: Bent Whalebone In Frozen Tallow Proves Most Effective. ESKIMOS KILL WOLVES EASILY Bent Whalebone in Frozen Tallow Proves Most Effective. BARROW, Alaska, Dec. 12. (UP)— Wolves, fogs, storms and the arctic night plagued six Eskimos driving a herd of 3000 reindeer toward Barter island, 500 miles east of Point Barrow, where famine threatened last summer. The wolves frequently stampeded the herd and the Eskimos revenged themselves with a cruel device employed by the natives farther back than any one can remember. Slow Death for Wolf. Chunks of frozen tallow were left along the way for the wolf packs to snap up. Inside each bait, the Eskimos had bent a six-inch piece of whalebone, sharpened to needle points on both ends. When the tallow melted, the whalebone sprung and drove into the wolves stomachs. Slow death was the fate of the wolf which gulped the lure. Deer on the Barter island drive were taken from the Point Barrow herd at a round-up recently finished. Griswald Collins, a veteran game warden sent from Juneau to investigate and try to destroy the wolf packs on the arctic slope, said he believed the Eskimo method of killing wolves would prove effective. Foxes lick the tallow, but do not swallow the whole bait and thus escape death, he said. "Methods used for exterminating wolves elsewhere do not seem so practicable as the one the Eskimos use," Collins commented. He hoped, however, to develop some way of killing the wolves on a large scale.