stefansson-wrangel-09-08-005-004

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Mr. Allan Crawford, the commander of the
Wrangel Island party, carried out my instructions in every way
to my thorough satisfaction except in one detail. I think I ex-
plained to him that taking formal possession of the island would
have no legal value and that the continuation of British claim to
the island would result not from any formal acts of us but from
the occupation of the island. Either I did not explain my view
fully or else he misunderstood, for it seems to have been his first
act when he got to Wrangel Island to hoist the British flag and take
possession while the schooner Silver Wave was still lying off the
beach. The story of his doing so was brought back to Nome by
Captain Hammar of the Silver Wave and was printed in the Nome
Nugget, causing considerable local excitement It is this story
which now has come to the attention of the American papers and of
other Americans, so that the matter is well known and has even been
specially presented to the State Department at Washington. It is
but natural that several nations including the United States should
now realize that they have let slip an opportunity by not moving
into Wrangel Island immediately after the British claim lapsed in
1919.

What I am now afraid of is that some journals
of the Hearst type may think it will make a good story to play up
my Wrangel Island expedition as an anti-British American stroke. To do so
would be untruthful but that would be the least of the worries of
some of our modern journalists. It has been impressed upon me,
therefore, that it is important to give the story out originally in
its correct form, showing that what we have done is nothing but the
continuation of British policy and a continued occupation of British
territory. It should be made clear when the story is originally
published that we realized it would not be many years until some
country took advantage of the lapse of British claims and moved in.
That that country would have been Japan, I have no doubt. If it
had proved to be the Americans, it would never have been by any
deliberate plan but merely through the accident of some American
adventurer going to Wrangel Island for the excitement of wintering
there or for the possible profits in furs.

As mentioned above, it has already cost me some
$20,000. to send the party to Wrangel Island and I am paying into a
bank every month the wages of the men who are there. It will also
cost me something to get them out again. I am not expecting that
any furs they catch will pay more than perhaps a quarter of what I
have already spent, or more than a sixth or an eighth of the expendi-
tures eventually necessary. However, I instructed my men to catch