stefansson-wrangel-09-05-002-001

Hudson`s Bay Co. Sale

February 23rd, 1921.

Confidential

Dear Mr. Sale:

I believe Wrangel Island is nearly if not quite the
best fur outpost in the Arctic for white and blue foxes and for
polar bears. It is also one of the finest places in the world
for walrus, and seals are very numerous. It is easier of access
from the Pacific than any of the posts which you now have on the
north coast of Canada from Herschel Island east. I am enclosing
a summary of the history, resources, political position, geographic
situation, etc., of Wrangel Island, with the hope that you may
decide to put a fur post there this year. It may be that it is
either this year or never, as will be shown in the summary of the
political situation.

The firm of H. Liebes and Company of San Francisco, one
of your chief competitors in the western Arctic, actually made a
start about three years ago to put a post on Wrangel Island. One
of their captains, Pedersen, had instructions to get a few Eskimos
from Alaska and land them on Wrangel Island for trapping proposes.
He did not carry these instructions out because he had an unusually
good opportunity to sell out his entire cargo before getting that
far. His intention, as he told me in conversation, was merely to
put the matter off for a year. The entrance of the United States
into the war, however, prevented him from establishing this post
the following season, and I believe the present depression of the
furmarket will prevent him from doing so this year. I have no
doubt, however, that it will be only a matter of a year or two till
some trader puts a post on Wrangel Island.

No country except the British Empire has a strong legal
claim to Wrangel Island, but it has been doubtful up to a week ago
whether we would press the claims we have. Canada has now entered
upon a general program of pressing all claims which we have to the
islands in the northern ocean. I told the Prime Minister, the
Honourable Arthur Meighen, that your Fur Trade Commissioner, Mr.
Brabant, had a strong inclination to put a post on Wrangel Island