Recounting the Polaris debacle from the perspective of Tookoolito, a fairly compelling narrative with not much new added, and a good deal of sentimental slush.
p. 95, On January 29, Tyson noted: …It is now one hundred and seven days since I have seen printed words! What a treat a bundle of old papers would be! All the world over, I suppose some people are wasting and destroying what would make others feel rich indeed.
I remember visiting the Yupik village of Aleknagik near Dillingham, Alaska, where a teacher claimed to have read 103 books during one winter there. The specificity grabbed my heart as I looked through the fall, fading grasses of late summer at dogs barking from the roofs of their small houses. Beyond stretched the immensity of the lakes and mountains of the Kuskokwim. This teacher did not say ‘about one hundred books.’ She did not say ‘many’ books. She said ‘103.’ Tyson said ‘107 days.’ Loneliness can wear this suit of numbers, a clothing as stark and unadorned as arithmetic.
p. 98ff, describes Charles Francis Hall archives at the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian .