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Arctic duty proves food for thought Cold weather, odd food among memories former college president has of time spent looking for oil By PAUL FATTIG Mail Tribune When it comes to a plate of boiled polar bear, Jim Sours would rather pass, thank you just the same. Even after nearly 60 years, he can still taste the meal he was served on his 19th birthday. "They boiled him all morning and roasted him all afternoon," recalled Sours, 76, who lives in Medford. "And you still couldn't tear the meat apart with your teeth." He wasn't too crazy about the muktuk - raw whale blubber - either. "When it was cold and raw, it tasted like a rubber boot," he said, although quick to add he has never eaten a rubber boot. Memories of the distant days he spent in the Arctic have surfaced with the current national debate whether oil drilling ought to be allowed in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. The retired president of what is now Southern Oregon University was a member of the first oil expedition sent to the Arctic by the military during World War II. He was just 18 when he arrived there in summer 1944 with the Naval Construction Battalion Detachment 1058. "When the Germans started going down the Balkans toward the middle eastern oil fields, the Navy decided to go up there and test it," he said. "We needed the oil. Of course, an expedition like that is not going to have immediate results as far as practical use is concerned." Sours, who didn't want to join today's debate over the future of drilling in the region, noted that the Navy controlled the petroleum reserve at the time. President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered a military unit to the Far North to check out the oil reserves. Reared in Oklahoma during the lean years of the Great Depression, Sours had joined the Navy in hopes of learning how to swim. He never got the chance, although he later taught himself. Sours was assigned stevedore duty. Not too excited about the prospects of loading and unloading cargo, he saw a notice on a bulletin board calling for volunteers for an oil expedition. Envisioning a trip to the Middle East, he volunteered. "I don't think the commander I talked to believed a word I said but he liked my attitude," Sours said. "I told him I grew up in Oklahoma, was familiar with the oil fields and that I had been a roustabout." Sours acknowledged that he may have stretched the truth a mite, particularly once he got past the part about having been reared in Oklahoma. "But I really didn't want to work as a stevedore," he said. The Arctic wasn't exactly the Middle East, but it was a chance to see the world. Sours was the fourth youngest of the roughly 200 men in the unit, celebrating his 19th and 20th birthdays in the Arctic. Most of the men were Navy Seabees who had been construction or oil field workers in civilian life. Sours, a carpenter's mate second class, was in veteran hands. They arrived by ship late in July 1944 just east of Point Barrow, the northernmost tip of land in Alaska. Camp was established 31/2 miles north of the town of Barrow. "It was the first time in American history that many men had been sent into that kind of climate at the same time," he said. Given it was a military expedition, there were a few snafus, he noted. "When we got up there, the clothing was all wrong," he said. "They gave us stocking masks that would freeze to your cheeks. It took about three months to get that squared away. They finally bought mukluks (fur-lined snow boots) from the Eskimos." The Navy personnel also learned about survival from the Eskimo people, he said. "They wear four or five layers of thin clothing," he said. "You get air in between those layers and it provides great insulation. It was a lot smarter than what we were wearing." They also learned to adjust to temperatures that dropped beyond 50 degrees below zero. "When it was really cold, you had to walk slowly and breathe slowly," he said. "If you didn't, you could freeze your lungs in two or three minutes. "When we first got there, our chow hall was one big tent," he added. "It blew away one night." The chow hall was replaced, and Sours learned to appreciate some native food, the boiled polar bear and raw whale notwithstanding. "The next time I tried muktuk, this Eskimo lady had prepared some type of hot oil sauce," he said. "Tasted kind of like coconut. You dip the muktuk in there and it isn't bad at all." They became accustomed to seeing plenty of wildlife, such as arctic fox, caribou and ptarmigan. There were no military inspections, no military drills. But there was some military highjinks. "The chaplain got mad at the guys because they swiped his communion wine," Sours said. "He quit having services after the first six weeks." But the chaplain, named Harry Corbin, continued working as the supply and welfare officer. Because it was an unusual expedition, Uncle Sam wanted a full report in the form of a book. Corbin was named editor; Sours the managing editor. The two produced what looks like a high school yearbook called "COM-ICE-PAC." Before leaving in mid-November 1945, the crew discovered oil about 300 miles southeast of Point Barrow near what is now the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve. "We found a 9-foot sand that wasn't commercially feasible," Sours said, adding, "Oil comes in layers of sand. They found oil in that layer but it wasn't in big quantities. "Of course, since that time, they've gone a little farther east and found oil," he added. After being discharged from the Navy, Corbin became president of Wichita State University. He eventually hired a professor named Jim Sours who had a doctorate in philosophy from Harvard University. Before becoming president of what is now SOU in 1969, Sours did get his trip to the Middle East - he served as a visiting professor at the University of Istanbul in Turkey. He retired from the Ashland school in 1985. "I've never been back to the Arctic, but I'd sure like to go see it again sometime," he said. But only in the summer, he added. Reach reporter Paul Fattig at 776-4496 or e-mail him at [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.