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to the island, and three on the island itself. Nearly every venture in
hunting and travel had turned out badly.

But Hadley had lived in the Arctic for a quarter of a
century, taking part sometimes in the various activities necessary for self
support and always associated more or less directly with natives or white
people who were making their living by hunting, sealing or fishing. On the
basis of what he know about the north coast of Canada and Alaska and about
Victoria, Banks and other islands where we had been living by hunting for
years, Hadley Insisted that Wrangell Island was by nature one of the most
favorable locations in the polar regions for self support by people who
knew how to avoid becoming victims of their environment, capitalizing the
very conditions that to the inexperienced are handicaps and hardships. Drift
logs for the building of comfortable cabins and for indefinite fuel supply
are found in Wrangell Island but in none of the other islands to the north
of North America. in that important respect Wrangell, therefore, excels all
other islands. Hadley had never seen walrus so abundant and so easy to get
(with a skin-boat); polar boars seemed morre numerous than in any locality
where he had been. Walrus and polar bears are the biggest game animals in
the Arctic and the easiest for the skilled hunter to secure. Seals, more
elusive to even the best hunters, were abundant around Wrangell Island and
obtainable, of course, on the same basis there as in any other arctic
country. The island was separated from Siberia by only a hundred miles of
average sea ice such as we are accustomed to travel over at about twelve
miles a day. On my various expeditions I have traversed perhaps two thousand
miles of similar ice, generally more mobile and dangerous. The numerous
hospitable traders and reindeer-owning natives of Siberia, therefore, were
near neighbors, as things look to an arctic explorer.

Hadley was constantly