stefansson-wrangel-09-21-025-002

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As said above these departures from our ordinary
methods with which the men were familiar are difficult
to understand. We have no key as yet.

(5) INEXPERIENCE. Although Knight and Maurer had been in the
Arctic before, Noice is partially justified in calling
them inexperienced, which appears from the following.
Maurer had been in the Arctic two years, but a year and
a half of that was spent on shipboard; the other half-
year, however, was spent in Wrangell Island itself.
Knight had been with my expedition three years and had
taken part in some of the longest sledge journeys. Our
method on these was to eat up during the first few weeks
all food brought with us and to live thereafter exclus-
ively by hunting - sometimes several months and in one
case more than a year. But Knight had not actually done
much of the hunting itself - he had rather been present
when it was done. Walrus and polar bears are the chief
game on Wrangell Island. They are so easy to secure
normally that I considered Knight's theoretical knowledge
ample.

Noice apparently includes under "inexperience"
the fact that on one occasion the Wrangell Island party
secured several tons of fresh meat by hunting but left
it a few miles from their camp unprotected. Several
days (or perhaps weeks) later when they went to haul it
home they found it had been eaten up by bears and foxes.
Since polar bears sometimes go almost in flocks (we have
seen 25 together) it is obvious that even a whole year's
supply of meat for four or five men and five or six dogs
could be eaten up by polar bears in a week.