METEI NEWSPAPER CLIPPINGS

Chilean Post Card

Chilean Post Card Purchased in Valparaiso Chile


24 HOUSES ISLAND BOUND  

WREN OFFICERS JOIN EASTER ISLAND CRUISE  

EXPEDITION LANDS ON EASTER ISLAND  

STUDYING PACIFIC NATIVES  

BIG WELCOME FOR MEDICAL EXPEDITION  

CRY HEARD (HALFWAY) AROUND THE WORLD  

DEATH FREE VISIT ON EASTER ISLAND  

CAPE SCOTT RETURNS  

NAVY GETS THANKS  

CAPE SCOTT CREW GETS EASTER ISLAND HONOURS  

DOCUMENTARY ON EASTER ISLAND  

RAPI NUI SCIENCE CLUB  

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         Portable housing on its way to Easter Island   

   PORTABLE HOUSES FOR EASTER ISLANDS

.....being shipped from Calgary to Halifax

24 Houses Island Bound

 Transportable housing, built by a Calgary-based manufacturer, leaves shortly for "the navel of the world," the native name for Easter Island.

 ATCO Industries Ltd. has recently shipped 24 palletized housing units to Halifax under a contract with the Medical Ex­pedition to Easter Island, organized by McGill University and comprising scientists from Canadian, British and United States medical schools.

 The housing, along with expedition personnel and their equipment, is to be transported to the South Pacific aboard the Royal Canadian Navy repair ship HMCS Cape Scott, leaving Canada Nov. 16.

  The researchers plan to obtain data on the distribution of  disease and hereditary factors of the isolated population of 1,200, which has multiplied ten-fold over the past century.

 During their two-month stay on the island, the 25 specialists will take X-rays and photographs and will make a wide assortment of medical and sociological tests and studies.

The 10-by-20-foot ATCO buildings, which are to be erected on site from a knockdown shipping package, will serve as laboratories, service shops and living quarters for expedition personnel, and could be left behind as an island health centre when the expedition returns to Canada early in 1965.

Taken from an Alberta paper

 


 

        WREN OFFICERS JOIN EASTER ISLAND CRUISE

TWO WREN OFFICERS have a share in the Easter Island medical expedition which sailed from Halifax on Monday, Nov. 16. It marks the first time in the history of the RCN that ser-vice women have taken a cruise of any duration in one of the Navy's ships.

Lt. Mary Olive King, of Hampton, N.B., and Halifax, who has a scientific background, and Lt. Rita Catherine Dwyer, of Toronto and Ottawa, a Spanish linguist, have been appointed to HMCS Cape Scott, mobile repair ship that is taking a team of 33 scientists to Easter Island. The purpose of the expedition is to conduct a large-scale study of the 1,005 inhabitants of the remote island, a Chilean possession in the southeastern Pacific, visited only once a year by a Chilean naval supply ship.

Lt. King, who was a wren officer in the Second World War, was a statistician at Atomic Energy of Canada, Chalk

River, before entering the wrens again in 1961. In her spare times she runs the planetarium of the Nova Scotia Museum in Halifax and lectures on astronomy. She serves normally at HMCS Stadacona, Halifax.

Lt. Dwyer, also a wartime wren, worked in the Department of External Affairs for 10 years before rejoining the wrens in 1959. A Spanish linguist, she had one External Affairs tour in the Argentine. She has been serving in Canadian Forces Headquarters, Ottawa.

The Cape Scott will bring the expedition back to Halifax on March 17.

A third naval officer is also to be attached to the team. He is Surgeon Captain R. H. Roberts, Chief of Medicine, Canadian Forces Hospital, Halifax, who will be in charge of medical examinations. His wife, Professor Maureen Roberts of Dalhousie University in Halifax, will supervise genetic studies.

Taken from a Naval Newsletter

 


Expedition Lands On Easter Island

Following her arrival off Easter Island on Dec. 13, the RCN's repair ship Cape Scott has successfully landed a fact-finding medical expedition in that remote part of the world. The expedition is one of 50 similar ones planned by the World Health Organization to places around the globe.

The Cape Scott, busy on other errands in the meantime, will return the members of the expedition to Halifax on March 17.

The ship had not only to supply her own fuel and water requirements but also the medical expedition's entire supply of fuel and its initial supply of fresh water. These requirements included 7,200 gallons of diesel fuel, 800 gallons of gasoline and 1,200 gallons of fresh water.

The off-loading and landing problems centred around the 24 palletized trailers, each weighing 3,600 pounds each, and one two-ton truck used by the expedition.

A wide variety of other equipment, stowed in the ship's holds, was landed on the island and set in operation by the ship's company. These items included a mechanical still with a capacity to produce 400 gallons of fresh water a day, a solar still with a capacity of 200 gallons a day, and salt water pumping gear and equipment.

In addition, there were about 100 tons of medical equipment and supplies, including four deep freezers, four electric stoves, two hot water heaters and flush toilets.

All this equipment was transported in two of the ship's three landing craft, in heavy surf and breakers, through a narrow treacherous channel in the reefs offshore and set up at campsite near Hanga Roa village, two miles overland from the landing site, in less than six days, working from dawn to dusk.

The executive officer of the Cape Scott, Lt.-Cdr. Charming D. Gillis, was responsible under the commanding officer, Cdr. C. Anthony Law, for supervision of the entire operation,

Lt.-Cdr. Robert A. Billard served as campsite installation superintendent; Lt.-Cdr. Edward E. Moore, as beach-master; Lt.-Cdr. Ross E. Thompson as cargo officer; Lt.-Cdr. Alfred E. Shaw as logistics coordinator; and Lt.-Cdr. Duff M. Pennie, engineering officer of the Cape Scott, as support group coordinator and technical adviser.

Lieutenants Charles A. Westrop and Robert B. Manze;- served as bridge watch keepers while the ship remained at anchor in unsheltered waters.

Cmd. Off. James Barlow, ship's electrical officer, was in charge of the electrical installation at the campsite. He had power on within four days of the start of the operation.

The expedition members were moved into their quarters at the campsite on the sixth day, according to schedule.

The complete operation was handled with such expedition that the entire ship's company was provided with the opportunity to tour Easter Island on completion of the project. Despite this, the ship arrived at Valparaiso Dec. 29, two days ahead of schedule.

Proud as they are of being associated with the medical expedition, officers and men of the Cape Scott were able to perform yet another service, this time for the Chilean navy. The naval supply ship which comes annually from Chile to the island has been delayed this year because of emergency repairs. So the Cape Scott brought off 42 people and 72 tons of island wool to the main-land when she left for Valparaiso.— D.M.P.

Taken from a Naval Magazine

 


Studying Pacific natives

    By FRED JOYCE

ABOARD HMCS CAPE SCOTT (CP)—The Medical Expedition to Easter Island had a flag problem but solved it without dissension and with some fast needlework on the way to the South Seas.

The Canada - based medical task force, sailing to study the Pacific island's natives, ran up against the question of a distinctive flag for the expedition as this Canadian Navy repair ship headed from Bermuda to San Juan Puerto Rico.

A design was quickly approved, unanimously. The problem came in getting it manufactured in time to run up for the entrance to San Juan Bay.

The yeoman of signals pro-vided the materials from un-used pennants. Cmdr. C. A.- (Tony) Law, the ship's captain and a well-known artist, helped get the design transferred to cloth. The ladies of the com-pany invaded the sailmaker's quarters and put sewing machines to work. Manicure scissors helped in trimming loose ends.

The Flag was flying by the time the American Island was reached. It bears the letters of the expedition's title — METEI (Medical Expedition to Easter Island)—vertically on a white background.

With that hurry-up problem disposed of, the expedition members were free to turn full attention to a continuing occupation of the long voyage-learning Spanish and Polynesian.

These are the languages of the 1,200 natives of Easter Is-land, who are to be subjected to an unprecedented integrated medical research program be-fore civilization strikes their outpost 2,500 miles off the coast of Chile with the construction of a jet plane field.

Two members of the expedition, Anna Maria Eccles of Halifax and Isobel Griffiths of Montreal, are Spanish and, are conducting daily lessons in that language.

The researchers are trying to get a grip on the essentials of Polynesian through a lexicon prepared by Father Sebastian, the island's padre for 38 years.

The expedition, which sailed from Halifax Nov. 16, is due to reach Easter Island Dec. 14 and work there until Feb. 11. The project is sponsored by the World Health Organization and the Medical Research Foundation of Canada, and the Canadian government has contributed transportation both ways aboard the Cape Scott for the research team and its stores.

Newspaper clipping unknown source.

 


Big Welcome For medical Expedition

 

HALIFAX (CP)—The 38 scientists who left here Nov. 16 on a medical expedition to Easter Island, a remote outpost 2,500 miles west of Chile, reported Monday by radio they "will be too busy setting up camp to do much celebrating at Christmas."

Besides boxes of technical data for studying the island's 1,200 inhabitants, the group transported Christmas trees from Nova Scotia aboard the naval supply ship Cape Scott, which arrived Sunday and will spend six days unloading.

The expedition is unloading supplies on Easter Island in the South Pacific after what is described as a "thunderous welcome" from the native population.

The arrival Sunday of the Canadian naval supply ship Cape Scott at the speck of land off the coast of Chile is described |in a Montreal Star dispatch by D. B. Macfarlane, a staff re-porter accompanying the scientific group."There was no mistaking the warmth of reception of islanders who confessed that they had not had a ship visit for 13 months," he wrote.

"Soon after daybreak scores of islanders pushed off from the shore in a flotilla of small craft and the eager smiles, laughs and song of the rowers captivated the crew and expedition members."

From a Halifax Newspaper

 


Cry heard

(halfway)

 around world

MONTREAL (CP)—Baby Murphy is a girl and her cries will be heard all the way to the remote Easter Island area.

Dr. Sonia Salisbury Murphy, a medical research fellow at the Royal Victoria Hospital, gave birth Wednesday, and Dr. David Murphy, a member of the Easter Island scientific expedition, will hear his daughter's cries over the ship's radio.

Some 1,000 ham radio operators will also be able to pick up baby Murphy's cries.

The expedition is due to reach Easter Island Dec. 14 and work there until Feb. 11 the project is sponsored by the World Health Organ-ization and the Medical Re-search Foundation of Canada.

From a Montreal Newspaper


Death-free visit on Easter Island

    By DAVE STOCKAND

MONTREAL (CP) — Easter Islanders will remember their new Canadian friends as visitors who brought a wondrous assortments of gifts free from hidden costs of sickness and possible death.

The Canadians came to the lonely South Pacific island aboard the Canadian Navy supply ship Cape Scott—but cocongo didn't.

Cocongo is a disease that sweeps the Chilean possession after the yearly visit of a Chilean supply ship.

Too often, it leads to deaths among Easter Island's Polynesian-speaking population.

But not this time, although the visiting Canadian medical scientists and their co-workers from other countries are at present studying this influenza-like disease of civilization at first-hand while treating its sufferers.

DIDN'T BRING COCONGO

"The Cape Scott didn't bring any cocongo and so the islanders from the beginning were most impressed with us," said Dr. Stanley C. Skoryna of Montreal, expedition leader and director of the gastro-intestinal research laboratory at McGill University here.

Dr. Skoryna spoke Friday in a radio interview carried out from Montreal over the 5,800 miles to expedition headquarters on Easter Island, a 1,200-population, 46-square-mile dot of loneliness more than 2,000 miles off the coast of Chile.

Continuing his cocongo study, Dr. Skoryna said:

"And then just recently, last week, we had a supply ship from Chile which has created quite a large epidemic of cocongo so that we have our hands full, particularly our epedemiology team, in studying the cases.

"It is a most interesting condition and probably is caused by a virus which is not present in Canada, fortunately for us.

"We are studying the disease at the moment."

From a Montreal Newspaper

 


 

 On the Island with the Cape Scott in background

The Royal Canadian Navy's repair ship Cape Scott lies off Easter Island this past winter after bringing a medical expedition of 33 scientists from Halifax to make an exhaustive survey of the isolated southeast Pacific island's isolated population of 1,200 residents. The medical team had members from five nations and closed off its four-month, 10,000-mile voyage March 17 at Halifax. In the foreground is one of the island's gigantic statues, mysterious reminder of a lost civilization. (CS-1115)

CAPE SCOTT RETURNS

MCS CAPE SCOTT with members of the Easter Island Medical Expedition embarked, arrived home in Halifax on March 17 after an absence of four months.

His Honour H. P. MacKeen, Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia boarded the Cape Scott to welcome the expedition back. Greeting the ship also were Rear-Admiral W. M. Landymore, Flag Officer Atlantic Coast, Dr. Stanley Haidasz, parliamentary secretary to the Minister for External Affairs, and other representatives of the Federal Government, the Government of Nova Scotia and Canadian universities.

Cdr. C. Anthony Law, commanding officer of the Cape Scott, and Dr. Stanley Skoryna, head of the medical expedition, held a special press conference on board the ship shortly after her arrival. Among the expedition members present were: Surgeon Captain Richard Roberts, Air Vice-Marshal John Easton, Dr. Helen Reid, Dr. George Nogrady, Dr. Harold C. Gibbs, Dr. Denys Montandon, Dr. Archibald Wilkinson, Dr. Armand Boudreault, Dr. Alexander Taylor and Dr. Maureen Roberts.

The Cape Scott departed Halifax Nov. 16 with scientific personnel representing six Canadian Universities and institutions in the United States, Britain, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Chile and Canada. The expedition was sponsored by the World Health Organization with support from the Medical Research Council of Canada and other foundations.

During the expedition's two-month stay on Easter Island medical teams examined the 1,200 inhabitants and collected biological samples. In addition, several scientists carried out studies in the fields of epidemiology, bacteriology, genetics, hermatology, sociology and anthropology.

The expedition was carried out with the co-operation of the Government of Chile.

Taken from a Naval Magazine

 


Navy gets thanks

Tony Law gets Award

From a Halifax Newspaper


    Cape Scott Crew Gets Easter Island Honors

Officers and men of HMCS Cape Scott, which took a team of Canadian scientists to Easter Island last winter on a medical expedition, were honored here Monday by the Easter Island Expedition Society.

Captain Tony Law of the Cape Scott was presented with a Plaque by Dr. Stanley C. Skoryna, professor of medical research at McGill University, in recognition of services rendered by the ship and crew.

Officers representing each section of the Cape Scott's crew were presented honorary certificates by the society.

Dr. Skoryna was director of the 36-member expedition that landed on Easter Island, 1,100 miles from Pitcairn Island in the South Pacific, last Dec. 14 and returned here March 17.

On the island, each of the 949 native Polynesian inhabitants was given an intensive medical examination. Research began into how generations of inbreeding had affected the health of the islanders. Sociologists visited homes to investigate family structures.

Information received in the island is being digested by computers at the University of Toronto, McGill University and American Universities. When all the available information has been compiled scientists will attempt an analysis of the life and mores of Easter Island.

Note: taken from a Halifax newspaper.

 


Documentary on Easter Island

Easter Island is so far away from its nearest neighbor that since his discovery, 243 years ago, it is that virtually nothing to do with the rest of the world.

At times are changing and soon, Easter Islanders will have an International Airport and see it here transoceanic jetliners landing in taking off from their lush green paradise.

Before this happens Dr. Stanley C. Scoryna, professor of medical research at McGill University, Montréal, urged that Canada send a medical expedition to record valuable information on the 948 Islanders before their way of life changed too much.

Last December, a 36-member expedition sale from Halifax aboard each HMCS Cape Scott to study the small, almost exclusively Polynesian Society - a most ideal group suited for scientific study because of its hitherto in violent characteristics.

On Sunday, June 6, from 3 to 4 p.m., CBC-TV will present a film documentary entitled Canadian Expedition to Easter Island.

Until HMCS Cape Scott arrived, the Island had been visited once a year by supply ships from Chile. The medical team took x-rays, blood samples and family histories, making special note of the Island's most famous inhabitants, the giant stone statues carved from volcanic rock.

When the expedition landed, they were guest of honor and sou-sou, or festival, complete with the welcomed by the mayor, a delegation of elders, the governor, priest, a band and a native dancing group.

Taken from a newspaper clipping of unknown origin.

 


 

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