stefansson-wrangel-09-25-001-002

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Great Britain and Russia. But more important and equally pertinentis the plan for arctic
exploration recently announced by the United States Navy and especially
their program of taking the dirigible Shenandoah across the polar basin.
This has been postponed till 1925 but will be much discussed this sum.
The United States Government has, therefore, undertaken to work out the
theories upon which the Wrangell Island expedition was based. Admiral
William A. Moffett, the head of the air section of the United States Navy,
and Major-General Sir Sifton Brancker, head of the civil aviation in
Great Britain, have both issued statements saying that they believe that a
regular dirigible service carrying mails across the Arctic between such
countries as England and Japan, for instance, will be inaugurated within
the next ten years. This will be the beginning of the new era of thought
and outlook and the new epoch of arctic development foreseen by the planners
of the Wrangell Island expedition, the central idea of which was to occupy
Wrangell Island permanently before the world came to realize its strategic
importance with relation to the new polar commerce "when countries that have
been distant from each other as measured from east to west shall become
neighbors across the northern sea."