stefansson-wrangel-09-38-004

Wrangel

THE ADEVNTURE OF WRANGEL ISLAND.

Late in the summer of 1921 four young men arrived at Nome, Alaska. During the few days that followed they were to be seen in earnest discussion first with one and then another of the hardy captains whose little vessels run well up into the floes of the Arctic Ocean.

Nome is a frontier town and frontier towns are notoriously inquisitive. But when the good people of Nome sought information as to the destination or intentions of these evident adventurers they met walls of silence.

Finally word spread that the mysterious young men were on their way to Wrangel Island, little known bit of the Arctic estimated to be 75 miles in length by from 28 to 40 miles in width and lying 400 miles northwest of the Alaskan coast and about 110 miles north of the eastern tip of Siberia. It is ice bound for the greater part of the year.

The people of Nome winked at one another and tried all the harder to run down the mystery. Alaska had been the scene of many gold stampedes, and naturally the first thing that occurred to the Nomeites was that these young men had discovered gold somewhere along the Alaskan coast and that their talk of Wrangel Island was but a subter-

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fuge intended to throw others off the track. Even the captain of the Silver Wave, with whom they finally closed for the trip, expected that his orders would be countermanded once he had put to sea.

The young men loaded their ship with supplies - food, ammunition and clothing - for a long period. They had enough for one year at least; some said they had enough for two. Particularly did they have a large stock of ammunition. In one respect, so some people thought, there was reason to believe that Wrangel Island might after all be their destination, for one of the young men was Frederick Maurer, remembered as one of the survivors of Stefansson’s flagship, the Karluk, which had been crushed in the ice in 1914 near Wrangel Island. Maurer was a member of the party which had spent seven months on the island before being taken off by the King and Wing in September, 1914. It did not seem possible that rich minerals could have been discovered on Wrangel Island at that time without word leaking out in the sevenyear interval. Yet the people of Nome could not conceive how anyone who had come so near to death by starvation as had Maurer and his companions in 1914 could be induced to return to Wrangel Island except under the stimulus of rich stakes.

There was another element to the mystery: It shortly became known that the expedition was sailing under orders

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emanating from Vilhjalmur Stefansson himself, and, in addition to Maurer, one other, Lorne Knight, was known to have been a member of the explorer's former expedition. And Stefansson was about the last man in the world to be interested in hunting gold.

The two others were Milton Galle, of New Braunfels, Tex., and Allan Crawford, of Toronto, Canada. Crawford was the nominal commander of the little expedition, but having had no experience in the North he would have to depend largely upon Knight and Maurer for advice.

In due course the expedition sailed from Nome. Little ice was encountered en route and without adventure the party was landed at Rodgers Harbor. Their first act was to hoist the British flag and take possession of the island in the name of the British King on behalf of Canada. Then the Silver Wave sailed away and from that day to this no word has been heard from the little party on Wrangel Island.

Wrangel Island was discovered in 1849 by Captain Kellett, a British navigator, and it appears under his name on subsequent admiralty charts. Herald Island, a nearby rock, which he discovered at the same time, still bears the name given by him (after his ship). But an American whaling captain, Thomas Long, sighting the island in 1867 and believing it to be new land conferred upon it the name "Wrangel" in honor of the Russian

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explorer who had searched so vainly for land in the Arctic Ocean half a century before. And in time the new name entirely supplanted the old.

According to international usage, the original discoverer need not actually set foot upon land to constitute a claim. Therefore Kellett's island became British by right of discovery. "Islands,” says Carlyle, "like tools, belong to those who can use them." After Kellett’s discovery no effort was made by Britain to confirm the claim and the island eventually returned to "no man’s land." Long’s sighting did not constitute a claim, as he did not enjoy the status of an original discoverer.

The first landing of which there is a record was made in 1881 when a party from the United States revenue cutter Corwin landed on August 12 to search for traces of the ill-fated Jeannette. An account of this landing is given in John Muir’s "Cruise of the Corwin."

Later on in the same year a landing was made by a second expedition in search of the Jeannette. This expedition, under Lieutenant (now Rear Admiral) Berry, in command of the Rodgers, remained on the island nineteen days, made a survey of the coasts and discovered the harbor which is now named after Commander Berry’s ship. One trip was taken into the interior and an ascent of a mountan in about 2,500 feet in height was made

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by the crew of the Rodgers.

Thus Wrangel Island became United States territory for a time. But from that day to this no further effort was made by the United States to confirm the claim, and whatever rights were acquired in 1881 had long since lapsed when the survivors of the Karluk landed there in the spring of 1914. They remained seven months, three of the number dying there.

This residence by the Karluk survivors revived the British claim, but as no efforts tending to confirm it were made by the Canadian government (in whose hands now lies the jurisdiction over all British islands in the north) there was danger that Wrangel Island would once again revert to the status of an "international maverick."

Stefansson has a well developed streak of sentiment in his make-up. He was born in Canada and his greatest polar expedition was conducted under Canadian auspices. The men whose bones rest in the soil of Wrangel Island were members of that expedition, and he undoubtedly felt that Wrangel Island should properly remain under Canadian jurisdiction.

A STATION ON THE WAY FROM LONDON TO TOKIO

Because of its geographical position Stefansson believed Wrangel Island would one day become valuable as