stefansson-wrangel-09-25-005-005

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kindled interest, for it is human nature to want whatever someone else
wants. The Government actually began to spend money, and the plans for an
expedition on a great scale took shape.

Then arose a most unfortunate controversy as to who should
be the controlling personality in these expeditions. Had there been a clear
victory for one or the other of the two chief candidates, all might have
been well. But the worst possible happened. An approximately equal support
for each developed in the Canadian Government; a virtual deadlock was pro-
duced. Eventually the supporters of one candidate seem to have proposed to
the supporters of the other that, since they could not agree on what to do,
they had better agree to do nothing. A telegram announcing this decision
reached me in Reno, Nevada, the summer of 1921 and broke my heart for the
time being.

We have dwelt in previous articles upon the theoretical
considerations behind our belief in a coming new era and our plans for exten-
sive and continuous northern exploration. But I had also been under constant
pressure of another sort. The tropical explorer becomes infatuated with the
tropics and either returns to them or eats out his heart deploring the cir-
cumstances that keep him away. It is so with the Arctic traveler. There
are few who go north who do not go also a second and a third time, or at
least whine and complain because they cannot go. On my expedition of 1913-
18 I had had with me a number of men who had fallen in love with the North and
were pining to get back there. I had told them about the indefinite plans
of the Canadian Government, promising that if these materialized I would try
to get them an opportunity to go along. My files are filled with correspondence
begging for such chances. Two of my men, Knight and Maurer, had been specially
urgent and I had promised them the first opportunities.