stefansson-wrangel-09-15-028-001b

TORONTO, FEBRUARY 12, 1924

Allan Crawford Memorial

To the names of those men from the University of Toronto who
have died for their country, whether at Ridgeway, or Spion Kop, or
Ypres, or in some far away corner of the earth, there was added just
a year ago now that of Allan Rudyard Crawford. For him the end
did not come in the crash and din of battle, with an enemy ahead and
an objective to be won. For him the only enemy was the long, cold,
drear Arctic night, monotonous and soul-killing, with ghastly hunger
lurking always near. For seventeen months Allan Crawford and his
three companions held out against the enemy; for seventeen months,
to the ver[y] [e]nd, they kept up their spirits, each encouraging the other.
And [when hope] was gone they went out into the storm with a smile.
Few letters in history are [more pathetic and more awe-inspiring than]
the sacred last few scribbled words in which Crawford, without a
note of complaint or reproach, apologizes for his writing, because his
hands were frozen on an unsuccessful attempt to cross the ice.

It was with a promise from Stefansson that he would be re-
lieved in the summer of 1922, that in 19[21,] Allan Crawford was per-
suaded to undertake the occupation of W[ra]ngel Island. He went be-
cause he believed it was his duty as a C[ana]dian to gain Wrangel for
Canada. He was told that the Island w[as] of great importance. He
did not know that the expedition was u[nau]thorized, that Stefansson
had no intention of personally relieving [him] the next year, that his
supplies were totally insufficient, and th[at] his companions, whom he
had been led to believe were Arctic vete[ran]s, were scarcely more ex-
perienced than he. Stefansson, despite t[ra]gedy after tragedy, believed
in "The Friendly Arctic." Even after the failure of the tardily-sent
relief ship, he announced that the Crawford party was as safe as if it
were on a tropic island! In a local newspaper recently appeared two
items, almost side by side. According [to one Stefansson was] going
to stop Arctic exploring because there was no longer an adventure
left. The other item chronicled the arrival at the home of a relative
of one of the Wrangel Island victims, of the typewriter on which the
diaries of the expedition were written. Somehow the two pieces of
news don't dovetail.

When Crawford left to take charge of the ill-fated expedition he
had just completed his third year in one of our Honour Science
courses. His fellow students, through the Students' Administrative
Council, are preparing to erect a memorial to him, but this memory
belongs not only to those who were at college with him, but to every
one of us who respects a brave man or a noble deed.