The Borden-Field Museum Alaska-Arctic Expedition of 1927

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The Borden-Field Museum Alaska-Arctic Expedition of 1927 was a five-month scientific hunting trip funded by John Borden to gather natural-history specimens for the Field Museum in Chicago. The voyage started in San Francisco on April 21, 1927, and ended there again on September 10, 1927. The ship was The Northern Light, a 140-foot ice-ready schooner designed for Arctic work.

John Borden led the expedition. The crew included family members, Field Museum staff, and other specialists, with eight Sea Scouts joining the voyage. After leaving California, the ship stopped in Victoria, British Columbia, and then sailed north along the Alaska coast to Ketchikan and Juneau. They crossed the Gulf of Alaska, visited the Aleutian Islands (Unimak, Unalaska, Bogoslof, and the Pribilofs), and hunted and collected along the way. In Nome, they met Field Museum ornithologist T. Ashley Hine. They then went to King Island to collect murres and puffins and were guided north by Indigenous walrus hunters.

From there they crossed the Bering Strait and followed the Siberian coast, meeting the Chukchi people at Cape Serdtse-Kamen. They continued to Point Hope, Alaska, and finally Wrangel Island in the Arctic Ocean. Wrangel Island was not landed on because it was under USSR control at the time; the crew hunted polar bears from whaleboats around the island and then began the long return journey, traveling about 4,000 miles back to San Francisco.

The expedition produced a large collection for the Field Museum: four Alaskan brown bears, four polar bears, four walruses, and one seal; 106 plant specimens; 111 bird specimens; and 533 ethnological objects from Indigenous peoples, including copper items, carved ivory, weapons, and jade tools. The bear specimens helped fill the museum’s Hall of American Mammal Habitat, with dioramas completed in 1930.

Women on the expedition played notable hunting roles, with Mrs. Borden, Miss Frances Ames, and Mrs. Rochester Slaughter hunting Alaskan brown bears; Mrs. Slaughter hunted the largest bear of the trip. Mrs. Borden, born Courtney Letts, later wrote a book about the journey. Approximately 200 Sea Scouts from across the United States volunteered to take part in the expedition.