Gus Masik with dog-team at his home on Sandspit Island, Martin Point, Alaska

Gus Masik with dog-team at his home on Sandspit Island, Martin Point, Alaska

During her Alaskan-Canadian Arctic journey in 1933-34 the Scottish botanist-explorer Isobel Wylie Hutchison sailed round the Alaskan coast from Nome to Barrow, a sea-voyage of 500 miles, in the ten-ton motor-vessel M.S. Trader. From Barrow, she continued her journey towards Herschel Island (a further 400 miles distant) in Gus Masik's similar-sized motor-boat, the Hazel. Gus was an Estonian, whose mother and grandmother had both been born in Alloa, who lived in the trading-post which he himself had constructed of wood, turf, and canvas, on Sandspit Island off Martin Point, Alaska. Hutchison lived here as his guest for six weeks, and wrote about his life in her book

Hutchison, Isobel, W. 'Arctic nights' entertainment / being the narrative of an Alaskan-Estonian digger August Masik, as told to Isobel Wylie Hutchison during the Arctic night of 1933-34 near Martin Point, Alaska' London : Blackie & Son, 1936.

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