stefansson-wrangel-09-24-002-004

-4-

twenty years till December since Orville Wright first
flew at Kittyhawk but the air-plane is already a power.
factor In twenty years from now all lands will be
connected with a network of airways more complicated than
the lines on a chart which show the present steamer routes.
The Atlantic has already been crossed and the Polar Sea is
tiny by comparison. Maurer, Knight and I used to discuss
the time when the Arctic would he covered with airways and
when it will would be convenient - if not vital - for the Empire
to have a landing-place under its own flag somewhere on the
northern frontier of Asia. [Paragraph symbol]If you look at a Mercator’s
map you are tricked into a feeling that the north coasts
of America, Europe and Asia are roughly in a line with each
other from east to west, but if you examine a globe which
correctly simulates the earth, you find these lands form a
horseshoe around a body of water only just big enough to be
called an ocean rather than a sea. Asia lies opposite to
Europe and America rather as Africa lies opposite to France
and Italy. On that whole vast frontier of Soviet territory
there is only one red spot. There are many better islands
than Wrangell. But we have given Spitzbergen to Norway,
Franz Josef land belongs to Austria by discovery, Novaya
Zemlya and the new Siberian islands belong to Russia by the
very same rights through which we claim Wrangell Island -
discovery and occupation. It will be convenient, at least,
in the world of tomorrow to have a radio station and air