 Off the western coast of Alaska, on a small island in the Bering Sea, and as harsh an area for human life as our planet has to offer, is the Eskimo village of Shishmeref. This small village which has been inhabited for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years, has a current population of 200 Eskimos, a minister, his wife, two school teachers, and over 400 dogs. The sod and ice houses of the old days have been replaced by wooden houses. This is Ralph Sinatra's house. Ralph is a hunter and an Alaskan scout, first scout battalion. Ralph's mother is a widow. Her husband died of tuberculosis five years ago. Like most Eskimos, she speaks both the English and the Eskimo language. Daniel is Ralph's younger brother, who would rather go hunting with Ralph this morning than go to school. The men are recovering from their 10-day ordeal on the ice. They huddled together for warmth as the storm blew them further and further out to sea. Their only food was a pound of reindeer meat. They praised the army helicopter pilots who saved them. The weather now in the Nome area is clear. The present temperature 30 below. The forecast for tomorrow is for more cold weather, accompanied by high winds. We now return to the musical portion of our program. Daniel has the job of harnessing up the team. The job was not assigned to him. He volunteered. The dogs are about the same weight as Daniel, so it was an even struggle. Daniel does a good job, but he needs a hand when it comes to finally getting everything in the right place. He waited until the last moment before asking the crucial question. Can I come along with you today, Ralph? It isn't that Daniel doesn't like school. He just likes hunting much more. Daniel went home to get his schoolbooks, and Ralph headed out toward the open sea. He traveled as Eskimos have traveled for thousands of years. His sled was made of driftwood found along the shoreline in the summer. A team of Huskies pulled him over the ice. His clothes and boots were made from the skins of animals he had killed. But there are a few changes from the old days. He carried a high-powered rifle with telescopic sights. And while hunting for seals was also scouting for the United States Army. I wasn't out on the ice with Ralph that day. He told me about it later. At the edge of the sea, in an area where he should have found seals, he spotted something very different. This close to the border of the USSR, everything seen or heard is important. Ralph had found other unidentified objects before. Hats, boots, crates, and empty oil drums that had floated across the sea. This was the first parachute he had found. It was unlike any of the parachutes he had seen at summer encampments or on maneuvers with the Army. Whatever it might have carried was nowhere in sight. Ralph decided to cancel his hunting trip and to contact First Battalion scout headquarters in Nome immediately. Every National Guard armory along the coast is equipped with an Army field radio. Voice messages are relayed in Eskimo, except for a few of the newer words that were never used in the old days. Undertaker, this is Ugly. Parachute, I'm out of, no talk, 35 miles. What I'm in, I'm a new uptack. Two rooms, two on in. 1100 hours. 14 January 63. Octi-Gaga, 20. Ugly, there are many Undertaker. Conok, Silla, Itpa, Archie, or Ningulok. Ugly, there are Undertaker out. Have Sergeant Sleen phone this into G2 right away. Yes, sir. Parachute suspected to be of foreign origin was found 85 miles west of this location at 1100 hours this date. Indications are that something was attached to the chute. At U.S. Army Alaska headquarters, Fort Richardson, Army intelligence had been planning a long-range patrol to gather terrain reports on the Seward Peninsula. Lieutenant Vosk and I were chosen for this patrol and equipped for an arctic journey. We were to fly nearly 1,000 miles from Anchorage to Shishmarev and then go by dog sled teams across the Seward Peninsula to Nome. When the scout's message arrived from Nome, a search of the parachute area was added to our original assignment. We took our last look at Anchorage, a large modern cosmopolitan city and headed west toward a small Eskimo fishing village. We skirted the highest mountain peaks in North America, made one refueling stop and finally sighted the flat coastal regions across the mountains. The NCO in charge of the scouts at Shishmarev, Ray Ningulok was waiting for us at the airport. This is Lieutenant Vosk, patrol leader and finally myself, PFC Hickey, patrol photographer and observer. My first observation was that the Eskimos in Shishmarev were among the friendliest people I had ever met. They greeted us warmly and then carted off our food and baggage. We slept at the National Guard Armory and the plan for the next morning was to have a meeting with Ray Ningulok and the scouts who were to be the other two members of our patrol. The Lieutenant asked Ray how long it would take to reach Nome. Well, Lieutenant, I'd taken things about four to five days from here to Nome. Four to five days. Do you know how the trail is? Has there been anyone on the trail lately? All right. I met last night a couple of hunters come back from down that way. They said they're a pretty good trail and they saw some wolverine down there but they didn't catch them. Oh, really? Did they set any traps? I think they're setting traps, all right, but they might get us some day. Good. And how many dog teams do you think it will take? Well, you can take two teams like Ralph and Andrew. How's your team, Ralph? I've been out tail hunting and they're pretty tired, but they'll be all right for your patrol. How about you, Andrew? How are your dogs? My dogs are in good shape for this patrol. We decided to leave on Monday morning. That would give us enough time to fill out terrain and data reports for Army intelligence on Shishmureff itself. The lieutenant worked on his reports while I photographed the warehouses, the oil storage tanks, and everything of possible use to the Army. Being a compulsive photographer and having my own camera, not all the pictures I took were of military importance. The children in town go to a school run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which is as good as any public school in any of the other 49 states. There are eight grades and about 40 star pupils. These aren't truants, they are just a little too young for school. I couldn't resist spending a few minutes in the classroom that held the first four grades. And does anyone remember what structure means? Structure means how an animal looks. Right, very good. Now, let's think about this. What's the difference in structure between a fish and a bird? Daniel? The bird has wings, the fish has no wings, the fish has no feet, the bird has feet. While I was getting an education, Ray and the lieutenant were off gathering additional terrain information for our reports. I learned later that they also managed to get in some fishing. The iceness time of year is about five feet deep. Ray pulled in one tomcat after another. The lieutenant admitted that he was not as successful. Ray took a seal hunting. Seals killed in the wintertime float long enough to be dragged in from the shore with grapple hooks. Seal hunting is the main occupation in Shishmaref. The meat is food both for the Eskimos and their dogs. Seals are worth cash in bowties paid by the government to protect the salmon industry in Alaska. The skins can be sold to fur dealers for additional cash or used for clothing. You can find seal skins drying all around the village. The women make jackets, pants, and boots from the skins. Even the intestines of the animals are dried and made into raincoats. The scouts had a drill session that day, one of their regular 48 sessions. There are 11 scouts in the village, but three of them were away on a hunting trip, or by scout standards, away on duty. Hold on up. To the right. Right shoulder. Forward. The scouts get instructions in weapons, demolition, aircraft and submarine identification and communications. Regular army or national guard officers periodically supervise the sessions. In their absence, the ranking NCO takes over. About 6 miles, 67 miles. The scouts and a few other hunters in the village put on a special dance force that night. It was called the Wolf Dance. On Sunday, the morning before we were to leave, we attended services and heard the Shishmaref Church choir. Most of the villagers belonged to the church. They wished us good luck on our trip. And the next morning the patrol was on its way. We left the village very early. Daniel was one of the few people to see us head out of town. We went out along the same trail that Ralph had taken on his earlier hunting trip. This trail also led eventually to Gnome. I felt great. We had an exciting mission ahead, two expert guides and two teams of dogs who could pull us smoothly all the way to the north pole. Or so it seemed. The white thermal army boots kept our feet warm at 40 below zero. Perhaps they're not as colorful as the Eskimo mucklucks, but they do the same job. After 10 miles or so, my face was nearly frozen. I was hungry, tired, and I found out that the dogs don't do all the work. We ran with them and helped to pull the sleds over the rough spots. There was nothing on the ice to be reported. No landmarks, no unidentified objects, no visitors from another world. Ralph led us to a sheltered spot near the place where he had found the parachute a few days earlier. It had taken us a full day to reach this spot with our heavier loads. A rather quiet, tired group sat down to dinner that night, each to his own favorite dish, or at least favorite available dish. The Lieutenant favored sea ration chocolate bars. Andrew preferred fresh frozen Tom Cod. My choice was sea ration beef stew. Ralph liked seal ribs. After dinner we were all a little more congenial. Andrew doesn't smoke, but that is cigarettes. I've always thought cigars were for warmer climates, but from now on I'll remember Andrew enjoying a stogie out on the frozen sea. Ralph and the Lieutenant talked over their plans for the next day. If we didn't find anything fairly rapidly, we would have to move on. Our food supplies were limited, and while we could live off the land as the Eskimos do, that might be pushing our luck. The weather looked good at the moment, but might change suddenly. The Lieutenant and I had a small army mountain tent for shelter. We took our boots off inside and slept in double sleeping bags. Ralph and Andrew, who liked to travel as light as possible, used the sleds as shelters. Their sled covers gave them protection from the wind. Eight hours later we were still asleep. The morning Arctic air was a shocker. The first job in the morning is to get the small stoves lit and coffee on the fire. The Eskimos are cheerful people even in the early morning. They were great to be on patrol with. We spent the next morning searching the surrounding area. By this time, Andy and I were good friends, partners hunting for something we weren't sure existed and weren't sure we were ever going to find. In the late afternoon, Ralph spotted a half-buried object on the side of the trail. Only a hundred could have spotted it. It seemed to be a radio transmitter of foreign origin. When the Lieutenant saw the broken shroud lines, he knew that this transmitter was connected to the parachute that Ralph had found. It must have dropped rapidly when the lines broke, and the chute gone floating on for another few miles. We wondered what a transmitter of foreign origin was doing on American soil. We headed directly for Nome with part of our mission successfully completed. After three days of traveling, we spotted an isolated, deserted building along the shoreline. It might have belonged to a fur trader or a gold miner many years ago who went broke, as many of the old-timers did, or perished in a storm. The Lieutenant decided to use it as a shelter. He located it on our maps for future Army patrols who might also welcome it as a shelter or as a landmark. I added a picture of the old building to my collection of photographs for Army intelligence. We rested our dogs, repacked our sleds, and started out along a familiar trail of ice and snow. We stopped to check our maps, collected as much additional intelligence data as we could, and kept moving to reach our destination before our food supplies ran out. It would have been very difficult to live off the land in this region. After a five-day journey with both our dogs and ourselves pretty well done in, having covered approximately 160 miles, we arrived at the outskirts of Nome. The Lieutenant could have picked another route into town, but having been on the ice so long, he felt like coming in on Main Street. We left for Fort Richardson with our intelligence reports and the transmitter, which turned out to be a Russian weather instrument that had blown off course. Finding this small object on the vast frontier proved the merit of the Army system of border scouting and patrolling. Ralph and Andrew headed back to Shishmarev. We heard that they arrived home safely on Friday. On Saturday, I would imagine that the children were sliding on the village slopes in Shishmarev just as they did the Saturday I was there, and using the swings outside the schoolhouse. Ralph told me that he planned to go hunting to catch up on the family food supplies. He said he was going to take Daniel along with him to teach him the ways of hunting and scouting, how to survive in temperatures of 60 below zero, how to make his way through storms, to find and bring back the elusive sea animals. What Daniel learns in school and learns from Ralph will help him to survive in a changing Eskimo world on the Bering Sea, guarding his country, his ancient traditions, and our northwestern frontier.