stefansson-wrangel-09-25-007-009

OverviewTranscribeVersionsHelp

Facsimile

Transcription

Status: Needs Review

9.

and that many of the winter nights have noonlight bright enough
to see a polar bear at half a mile. Not once in two years of
this frankest of diaries do we find even an entry to the effect
that "we ought to stand night watch to get more bears”. This
was not "laziness" (as newspaper commentators have charged)
for the energy of the party in other directions disproves that;
it was not incompetence (as also charged) for the routine of
"standing watch and watch" is simplicity itself and Knight had
been under it for years on my 1913-18 expedition. The explanation
is that we use this method only when we fear scarcity of food, and
the Wrangell party had no such fears.

On November 1st Knight writes: "There is considerable
clothing to be made for Crawford and me if we go .... Crawford
and I have just about made up our minds to make the trip, and the
time of starting depends on several things - ice conditions, dog
feed, weather, etc., but we are hoping to get started about
. We think that if the weather is good and going
on the ice not too bad, Nome should be reached in sixty or seventy
days, for we have about made up our minds to go to Nome instead
of Anadyr Bay. We have thought that Stefansson might be wintering
on the mainland south of us, and I think that if he is we will see
him (that he will arrive at Wrangell) by January 1st. If he
should not come till later, we will have to take a chance and go,
for very likely if he is wintering on the mainland we will hear
of him and his ship and will go there. If one can go by hunches,
my hunch tells me that Stefansson did not come north this summer
and that we are doing the right thing in making the trip."

Notes and Questions

Nobody has written a note for this page yet

Please sign in to write a note for this page