Geography in Luck of the North

Roy Kooijman r.kooijman4 at chello.nl
Fri Aug 22 22:36:38 CEST 2003


Sigvald:
> > Well IMO it still is Alaska. I don't know
> > enough about your points b, c or d so I
> > cannot argue about those.
> 
> Then you should perhaps read about both Greenland and Alaska 
> before making up your opinion.

Lets quote the b, c and d's from your previous mail:
b) The natives live in igloo's (ice-houses) *not* in wooden houses.
c) The natives are using Kayaks when they travel at sea.
d) The natives are drawn like, dressed like and are called Eskimos.

Well I did look a little in to it with a little search on google

Some nice examples are
http://www.explorenorth.com/library/communities/alaska/bl-MarysIgloo.htm
Even giving us coordinates: It lies at approximately 65° 09' N Latitude,
165° 04' W Longitude.
Remember Barks used the coordinates Lat 70 north and Long 167 west (which
was in the sea).
Looks like those places are only about 100 km apart :-)

I also found out "that an Alaskan igloo as seen in Barrow consisted of
driftwood and sod. Temporary structures could be made of snow."

Then this page where someone has a Eskimo guide and tells about Kayaking and
stuff, also there are pictures where Eskimos in clothes can be seen.
http://www.turtletrack.org/Issues00/Co03252000/CO_03252000_Alaska.htm

All these (easy to be found) pages tell me your point b, c and d DO NOT only
fit to Greenland Eskimo's.

Sigvald, perhaps you should read a little more before you tell someone else
too!

> If the story wasn't changed by the US-editors and Barks 
> is really to blame for portraying Alaska exactly like Greenland - 
> I can only see two reasons for it; lack of Geographical 
> knowledge at the time or American chauvinism. 

And I MIGHT have another reason, yesterday I did read another interesting
thing about this subject in the book from Donald Ault called "Carl Barks
conversations" on page 9/10:

"On those long stories, occasionally the idea came from somebody else. Now
that story where Gladstone and Donald were up in the Bering Sea and they
found that old Viking boat - that story came to me from Dana Coty, who used
to be an editor on Judge magazines years ago. He worked for Disney, too, for
a while. He had this idea for a story with quite a number of gags in it in
which Gladstone goes up to the North as the result of some trick that Donald
had played on him. So I bought the idea from him and developed it, added a
lot more to it. But most of the longer stories originated with me. And 90%
of the shorter-length Gyro stories, too." 

Well the Bering Sea is next to Alaska and not near Greenland. Another reason
to stick with Alaska.

BTW idea Dana Coty is already in Inducks/COA.

> There are still enough of Barks' stories that are set to Alaska. 
IMO that's a *stupid* reason!

-- Roy



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