stefansson-wrangel-09-25-006-036

- 36 -

On September 2nd "about 6 P.M. two walrus were seen on a
small cake of ice about a mile southeast of camp. All hands with the dory
went after them and we landed on a large cake about 150 yards northwest of them.
I stayed with the dory while the others sneaked up. All three fired nearly
together, killing two. .... Galle was then sent home for an axe, lantern,
etc. , as dark was coming on. ... Had just finished the large walrus
when Galle returned to a cake as near as he could get to us, perhaps two
hundred yards. Then follows a long description of the difficulties they had
with the heavy boat and the slowly shifting ice cakes which occationally met
so that one could step across and separated, leaving water channels
between. Again they were greatley handicapped by the clumsy dory which was
so heavy that they could not lift it out to drag over the ice. Long after
dark they got to camp with, apparently, two or three hundred pounds of meat.
The next day the ice was still in approximatley the same place. After a great
deal of hard labour they were able to get most of it ahsore. That day they
used ot the small, milling ice floes. At one time the sledge with about
three hundred pounds of meat was upset and all but fifty pounds of the load
spilled into the water. Knight is not very clear as to how much meat they
saved but he mentions one load which he XXXXXXXX estimated at six hundred
pounds although Crawford does not think it was so much." Apparently they
must have saved at least a thousand pounds of meat and fat.

During the next several days there are constant refer-
ences in the diary to the snorting walrus that could not be seen. There is
no complaint about these being unreachable because of the weight of the dory
but to one familiar with the conditions, that situation is obvious.

During my difficulties in financing the relief ship the
summer of 1922, my cheif worry had been that the sea might be open near Wrangell