stefansson-wrangel-09-28-015

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Soviet despatch,said to come from Anadyr, was not only circulated through the
newspapers but was actually brought to Nome and delivered to Mr. Noice by the
United States Coast guard vessel Bear. This said in substance that if a supply
ship wished to sail to Wrangell Island a wireless request asking permission to do
so must be sent to the Soviet Government at Anadyr! This request would be
granted on condition that the supply ship would call at East Cape, Siberia, take
on board a contingent of Red Guards and carry them to Wrangell Island where the
Red Guards would confiscate all furs and other commercial property of the expedition
but would allow the men on the island as well as the ship to go free! Noice
transmitted this message to me in London. My reply was to the effect that we did
not know that the Russian Government had any legal standing in the case and that
the nationality of Wrangell Island would not in any case be determined by the
results of any predatory expedition such as the Soviet threatened but rather
according to international law and probably by the decision of some international
tribunal or committee of arbitration. Noice was, therefore, to make no reply to
the Russian message and was to ignore it except as a hint to shape the course of
the ship so as to avoid calling at any Siberian port. This was logical in any
case for, according to my view, the best route was to follow the American coast
to Point Hope and strike thence directly for Wrangell, leaving the Russian coast
far below the horizon to the left.

There was considerable popular excitement over these Russian
despatches, especially in the United States and Canada, and I took this to be the
explanation of the sudden rise in prices of everything in Nome that we needed for
the relief operations. I now know that this was not the whole truth and that
the change of prices was due in part to the impression which Mr. Noice got (I
do not know from where) that the money we had cabled him from London came from the
British Government and that there was plenty more where this came from. An
expedition which would have cost between three and five thousand dollars if