stefansson-wrangel-09-20-044

Maurer

Copied from Seattle paper of Sept. 2 1923.

MAURER ESCAPED ICE GRIP ONCE--WAS RESCUED BY SEATTLE MAN.

One of Victims of Wgangel Island Expedition Gained Famr by Carrying Cat 81 Miles Across Drifting Field.

Breaking from its frozen fetters, a drifting icefield probably carried Allan Crawford, Frederick W. Maurer and Milton Gale of the Stefansson Wrangel Island expedition to their doom in the desolate polar wastes when they attempted to cross the ice to Siberia last winter in the opinion of Olaf Swenson, president of Olaf Swenson & Co., of Seattle, who rescued the Karluk survivors from the same island in 1914.

Maurer was one of the men rescued from the island by Mr. Swenson. He became nationally famous as the man who carried the Karluk's cat on a terrible two month's journey across the ice from the wrecied ship to the island in the early part of 1914. He went north again two years ago as a member of the advance guard of Vilhjalmur Stefansson's commercial expedition to Wrangel island, going to the same isolated spot where he had been marooned with the other Karluk survivors.

News of the death of all four white members of the Wrangel Island expedition, as cabled from Nome, Alaska, caused a sensation in Seattle's Arctic colony yesterday. Capt. Harold Noice, youthful navigator of Seattle, sailed from Nome August 3 to rescue the survivors. After a hard voyage he reached the island August 20 only to discover that all four white men were dead and that Ada, an Eskimo woman cook, alone survived.

"It is hard to tell what fate overtook Crawford, Maurer and Gale," said Mr. Swenson yesterday. "They probably were carried to their doom by drifting ice. When the Karluk survivors were marooned on Wrangel Island, Capt. Robert Bartlett, who commanded that ship, succeeded in crossing the ice from the island to Siberia, thence going to Nome on a trading schooner with the first news of the fate of the Karlum expedition. That trip across the ice was a wonderful feat. Finding themselves in a plight similar to that of the Karluk survivors, Crawford, Maurer and Gale attempted to duplicate Captain Bartlett's feat, and went to their death."

The three men set out on their great venture in December. On the island they

left Lorin E. Knight, of McMinnville, Ore., who died June 20 last as a result of scurvy. Crawford, Maurer and Gale left the island with feed for their dogs for seventeen days, but with little provisions for themselves, Knight was too ill to travel and was left in the care of the Eskimo woman.

Stefansson sent the expedition to Wangel Island in the early summer of 1921, provisioned for a stay of one year. The 1922 season was one of the worst known in years in the Arctic, however, and a daring attempt by Capt. Joe Bernard to reach the island in the power schooner Teddy Bear was blocked by the ice pack. The pack had failed to move out. Bernard barely escaped from the Arctic before winter closed down.

Noice Ordered to Rescue.

Stefansson this summer engaged Captain Noice, former Broadway High School boy, who had been one of his lieutenants in the first Stefansson expedition, to go to the rescue of the party marooned on Wrangel Island. Noice purchased the power schooner Donaldson and sailed into the Arctic, reaching the Island after a severe and dangerous voyage.

The first Stefansson expedition went north in 1913 in the steamship Karluk. It was sent into the Arctic by the Cnadian government for exploration work, sailing from Victoria, B. C., in the summer of that year. Maurer was a fireman on the Karluk. Capt. Robert Bartlett, second in command of the Peary expedition which discovered the North Pole, was master of the Karluk.

In September, 1913, the Karluk reached Point Barrow, dropping anchor off that settlement. Stefansson and several of his followers went ashore to hunt. While they were gone a great storm swept the Arctic Coast. It carried the Karluk north into the outer ice of the vast polar pack. The ice closed around and imprisoned the ship, carrying her hundreds of miles away from Point Borrow.

Ship Shattered by Ice.

In January, 1914, the pressure of the ice pack shattered the Karluk. Those aboard numbered twenty-four. It was necessary to abandon the wreck and strike out

for Wrangel Island, which lay eighty-one miles away. Then began one of the most terrible marches in the modern history of the Arctic. Several men insisted on heading for Herald Island and perished on the ice.

The others led by Bartlett, pushed forward day by day for Wrangel Island, fighting their way over broken ice fields and assailed by fierce blizzards. As Maurer was turning to leave the Karluk, the ship’s cat stepped into view. Although, like the other survivors, he was heavily burdened by a load of provisions and clothes, he picked up the cat, wrapped it in clothing and carried it in his arms. On a march where every extra ounce of weight might spell disaster, Maurer steadfastly refused to abandon the cat.

At the end of two months having covered eighty-two miles of broken ice fields, the party reached Wrangel Island.

In the meantime the fate of the Karluk and those aboard had become the great mystery of the day. It remained a mystery until Captain Bartlett suddenly appeared on the Siberian Coast in June, 1914, voyaging to Nome with the news of the disaster.

Eleven Survivors Found.

Several efforts to reach Wrangel Island that summer resulted in failure and then the power schooner King and Winge, carrying the trading expedition of the old HibbardSwanson Company of Seattle, left her commercial ventures to attempt the rescue. The expedition was headed by Mr. Swenson. The King & Winge reached the Island in September. Of the twenty-four men who had left the Karluk, only eleven were found alive on the island. Eleven had perished. The two others were Captain Bartlett and a native who accompanied him on his perilous trip across the ice to Siberia.

"Maurer was one of the first men we found on the island," said Mr. Swenson yesterday. "I remember him well because of his kindness to the Karluk’s cat. We brought him aboard the King & Winge and as he reached the deck he keeled over.

"When we sailed away from Wrangel Island with the eleven survivors, Maurer still

had the cat. He took it to his home in New Philadelphia, O. The kindly disposition he displayed in refusing to leave the cat to its fate in the Karluk wreck and in caring for the animal impressed us all in his favor."

"The Arctic has claimed a kind man," was the epitaph pronounced on Maurer by other Seattle Arctic navigators yesterday.

Of those lost as a result of the Karluk disaster, eight died on the ice and three succumbed to illness on Wrangel Island.